Switch
by The RyRy
Summary: The heroes thought they destroyed Vegnagun, but it left its mark on their world. Gippal thinks he only has one problem, but soon discovers that the problems go deeper than he imagined. Bunch of challenges in this one!
1. Part One Chapter One

This was an ongoing project. This mammoth was written during a time when I thought I could write anything, and set out to prove it; I basically took every bizarre writing prompt/challenge that I could find in my various writing communities and smashed them all together into one big story. Every time I found a new weird challenge, I would write a new chapter of this story. That may account for the disjointed nature of the story, and also for just how bizarre it truly is. I haven't kept track of what challenge each chapter/part/whatever is in response to, but my guess is that you will get the gist every time you come across one of them.

-RyRy

**Chapter One**

Suddenly realizing that he was lacking his genitalia was the reason Gippal gave for not being able to fight the machine with any efficiency.

"There are more important things to worry about!" Yuna had pointedly informed him.

"Yuna?" Gippal hoisted his jigsaw over his shoulder and took another look at what was left of Vegnagun. "I am missing my _manhood_, in case you missed that part—"

"Yeah, we've got problems too!" Rikku hopped up and down, covering up the area of her clothing which hadn't exactly entirely covered her crotch before, but did an even worse job of that now.

Gippal wanted to burst out laughing. Rikku had a package!

"This is likely an elaborate trick," Nooj said, taking a few strides forward. "We are in the Farplane, and this machina has become active. This could be an illusion to frighten those who would challenge it."

"One hell of an illusion," Paine muttered, and Gippal had to note that she had quickly changed into her Trainer dresssphere which had a long dress that covered most of her body.

"It doesn't matter!" Yuna clenched her fists and looked up at Vegnagun. "We have to defeat it, or all this will have been for nothing!"

"She's right," Paine said, stepping forward to challenge the machine. "Let's go."

Gippal still wasn't certain that anything was right about their situation, but he did his part. He fired the projectiles from his jigsaw, trying to aim as best as he could, and trying even harder to not think about his missing genitals.

That was so very difficult to not think about.

* * *

Watching Vegnagun burst into flames, Gippal waited for his penis to reappear.

He waited and waited.

No… still nothing. He was impatient.

Destroying the creator of the illusion should have destroyed the illusion too, Gippal figured. Or maybe it was just the Farplane messing with his mind. Al Bhed didn't belong on the Farplane anyway.

Gippal hoped it was one of those explanations, anyway. He didn't want to deal with the possibility that he was…

…

…_lacking_ something.

Well, he noted that he was, in fact, lacking something… but he had also gained something…

…something_s_.

Gippal prodded at his own chest. Those… were on… his body.

He totally had boobs.

At first, Gippal thought that was really cool. Then, he decided it was really not very cool at all. His armor didn't fit anymore and it sat awkwardly on his chest. He had to take it _off_.

Gippal hated how small his shoulders looked without the armor - he knew he looked really rather skinny and weak, like a typical scrappy Al Bhed. And now, he supposed his _additions_ didn't help things.

Although he was engrossed in his new body, there was something more important. That thing was Baralai staggering forward away from the burning wreckage of Vegnagun, that shadowy form behind him making him look like he had two heads.

Gippal's heart pounded. Baralai. He had to be okay… and Nooj was going to blow him up! What an idiot. Good thing Yuna had come along.

Baralai collapsed forward, falling away from the hazy ghost-like form. It was just like the pyreflies in the Den of Woe, like watching them invade the people around him without ever taking on Gippal himself.

He wasn't going to stand for that this time.

Gippal strode forward, but his body was awkward. He couldn't walk properly, everything was all out of balance. Paine beat him to Baralai.

Well, that was good at least. Lai did look kind of dead, though – that worried Gippal more than a little.

"Shuyin!" Yuna cried, and then she and the ghost that had inhabited Baralai proceeded to have an argument.

Gippal would have rather just killed the bastard and gotten it over with. There was the problem that he couldn't seem to get his hips to work properly; for that matter, he couldn't even get them to function well enough to get himself to walk forward. His balance threatened to slip out from underneath him, trying to send him tumbling to the ground.

"Gippal, take him," Paine ordered, and she practically threw Baralai in Gippal's general direction.

Gippal made the sound that he hated to hear come out of his mouth and lunged forward, attempting to catch Baralai's lifeless form. He failed, however, and the two of them wound up in a pile on the ground.

In the process, Gippal managed to catch a glimpse of Paine's crotch. She had a little bit of extra mass there than normal – that was reassuring, in an odd sort of way.

Gippal hoped he didn't have to explain.

To get his mind off of one problem, he turned his attention to the other. Unfortunately, the girls were taking care of the weird ghost guy – Shuyin, his name was. Something about using love to make him give in… Yuna had tried to use it on him when he was still possessing Baralai. Now they were all fighting, and Gippal really wanted to keep his fingerprints off of all of that. "Lai, wake up, man," he said, patting Baralai on the cheek. He had to be alive. It would be a serious problem if he wasn't.

"Mph," Baralai replied, turning his head and scowling.

Gippal smiled. Well, that was one problem that had been solved…

…but he still hadn't regained his penis.

* * *

Gippal, having figured out how to walk with these new curvy hips that threw his balance out of whack, carried Baralai out of the Farplane on his left shoulder. Baralai had always been a fairly small man, so doing this had never been a problem before.

Besides, the girls were all too busy _stroking_ themselves to help. Yeah, and they were looking around trying to find a "cure" for their manhood, but Gippal had figured it out.

It was a trick of the Farplane. No wonder this place had always creeped him out.

Gippal just wanted to get out of there and have everything go back to normal. Once they had defeated the evil spirit and the heartwarming reunion had taken place, none of which Gippal was particularly interested in, he just wanted to get back to the inside of one of the Yevon temples.

The inside of a temple wasn't something Gippal had ever thought he'd long to see.

As he trudged down the path back toward the winding pathway that would lead him to the surface, if there was a surface anymore, Gippal could feel his new frontal attachments jiggling as though to remind him that yes, he was a woman and therefore he had tits.

He couldn't wait for them to be gone.

…especially since Baralai's knee kept brushing one of them. It was most… uncomfortable… and arousing.

No, Gippal thought, he had to get out of the Farplane. This was too weird. It was almost like they were real.

Baralai began to cough.

"Lai, are you okay?" Gippal said, feeling the other's stomach convulsing on his shoulder. With as fluid of a motion as he could possible conjure, he brought Baralai off of his shoulder and sat him down on a convenient outcropping of translucent rock.

"Yeah," Baralai said between coughs. "I'm… just breathing."

"It's good to see," Gippal said, swallowing. He had been so worried about Lai being dead that any sign of life – even though he knew he was alive – was a relief. "You breathing, I mean."

"I know what you mean." Baralai's face was growing hot from coughing so hard. "I'd… forgotten how to breathe… _he_ had been doing it all for me." Tears glistened silver at the corners of his eyes. "Everything. _He_'s been doing everything for me. I couldn't even," cough, "breathe."

"Hey," Gippal said, sensing Baralai's distress. Something about his emotions seemed so much clearer and tangible. "It's over now. He's gone."

"Never gone," Baralai murmured, stifling a cough deep in the back of his throat. "Always here. I'll never forget what it felt like."

"But it's over." Gippal put his hand in Baralai's hair, trying to soothe him. It seemed important. "No more Shuyin. We got rid of him."

Baralai huffed, but he was leaning against Gippal's hand, closing his eyes and smiling. Gippal felt his heart flutter. Everything was going to be okay… if he could just get out of the Farplane with Baralai still intact.

"Gippal?"

Lifting his eyes, Gippal met Baralai's glance. "Yeah?"

"What's wrong with…" Baralai put his hand at the center of Gippal's chest, tracing his fingers downward. He looked down and then up into Gippal's face, narrowing his eyes a little. "What's… wrong with your body?"

"An illusion of the Farplane," Gippal replied easily. He was confident – that had to be the answer.

Baralai's smile seemed sad and forced. He whispered something and then broke into another fit of coughing.

Gippal blinked. "We've gotta get you outta here, to someplace where the air isn't as… heavy."

"Yeah," Baralai agreed slowly. "Let's… let's go. I can walk."


	2. Part One Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

It hadn't been an illusion.

In fact, it hadn't even been a Farplane thing.

When Gippal reached the surface with Baralai, coming up through the hole in the bottom of the temple in Bevelle, nothing had changed. Gippal was still female. He still had tits; he still was missing his penis.

This situation was most frustrating. Gippal was happy to know that he wasn't alone in his frustration and panic, however. It seemed that _all_ of Bevelle had been thrown into a panic.

"I just want to go home," Baralai announced as they trudged through a mass of groping hands and kicking legs. "That's all. I want to eat some Zanarkand Bread and drink some wine and go to sleep…"

"What has everyone so riled up?" Gippal wondered, looking at the erotic things happening in front of him. Everywhere, women were groping each other and men were screaming and wailing. "They're all panicking…"

"I don't care," Baralai said, even though Gippal could clearly see that the events were bothering him too. "I just want to go home."

Baralai's home consisted of an apartment in the top of the Temple in Bevelle. It was a penthouse with expansive picture windows, angled ceilings, and plush white carpeting. The kitchen alone was twice as big as the room Gippal slept in at Djose, and it looked like the floors were scrubbed with bleach weekly.

Gippal would have inferred that Baralai had a personal team of servants to clean for him if he didn't know Baralai as well as he did. After all – Baralai had been the guy who vacuumed out the standard-issue Crimson Squad tent to clear it of dirt before they folded it up and moved onto their next station.

Yeah, Baralai was lovable, even in those days.

Just as Gippal was about to close the door, he was rudely interrupted by a vaguely familiar face about to barge his way inside. "You are back, and just in time—"

"Baralai needs rest," Gippal tried to say to the Summoner coming in through the door. It was Isaaru, and Gippal knew him from the brief time he had spent in Bevelle before. It was a relief, however, to see that even the Summoner had been turned into a woman.

"Isaaru," Baralai said, emerging into the entranceway from the kitchen. "I… have just… returned. I really cannot—"

"The populace is quite disturbed," Isaaru continued, "After all the commotion coming from the underworld. They need reassurance, and the leaders of the world need to step into their rightful places."

Gippal just stared at him. "Man," he said, "We've got lots of things to worry about."

"Can you take care of it, Isaaru?" Baralai asked politely. "You are very good with the people, and you are a gentle speaker. Please, do what you can. The people will calm down in a short while, once they have gotten accustomed to the situation. As far as I can tell, we are all safe."

Looking at Baralai strangely, Isaaru nodded. "It is what I do best," he replied, but then looked at Gippal. "You may want to assure the Al Bhed that they are not in danger from Yevon." He then turned and walked back down the corridor toward the main part of the Temple.

Gippal finally got to close the door. "Man, what's he thinking, bothering you at a time like this…" He trailed off. Baralai had collapsed on the eggshell-white couch in the living room, beneath a sliding glass door that led to a balcony. He walked over and sat on the armrest, delighted that he could straddle it without any adverse pain from his groin, and looked down at Lai trying to guess what was wrong.

"Everybody but me," Baralai muttered.

Gippal stared at him for a moment. "What?"

"It… affected everybody but me."

"You mean… you're still… you have…"

"Yes." Baralai turned onto his side and curled up into a ball. "I still have my proper genitals."

Gippal was getting tired of sitting on the armrest, so he slid down and sat on the couch near Baralai's feet. "Why?"

"I don't know," Baralai murmured, opening his eyes to tiny slits to look at Gippal. "Shuyin's last laugh, I guess."

"I don't believe that." Gippal patted Baralai on the ankles. "Since you were in Vegnagun when it happened, it probably acted as a shield for you."

"Since I made it happen, you mean."

"Come on, that wasn't you. That was Shuyin, remember?"

"It was still me." Baralai looked at his hands like they had suddenly turned into avocados. "These hands struck the chords on Vegnagun, they brought pain on the Gullwings, to you, to Nooj, to—"

"That's enough," Gippal interrupted. He reached over Baralai's body and took his hands. "_It wasn't you_. It was Shuyin. He just happened to be using your body… it's in no way your fault."

"I was weak," Baralai protested, trying to take his hands away from Gippal. "I still am weak."

"_Cruubivcred_," Gippal cursed, and Baralai's eyes widened. "You are not weak, Baralai. You're a strong, handsome, powerful man who just so happened to get possessed by some crazy spirit bent on revenge. Nooj was possessed too. So was the entire Crimson Squad!"

"Except you."

Gippal felt his heart leap into his chest. "Yeah," he agreed, looking down at his hands. "Except me."

"Don't tell me you feel left out."

Gippal locked his fingers together. "Sometimes I wonder why."

"You don't want to know what it's like," Baralai said, his voice so low that Gippal had to strain to hear him. "To have another mind take over your own, shoving you back into the darkness… where you can see and hear all that's going on, but you can't… do… anything."

Silence settled over them as the first light from the moon shone in through the sliding glass door, coating Baralai in shimmering moonbeams. The silver of his hair in the soft light nearly took Gippal's breath away.

Err. Gippal crossed his legs. Something was terribly wrong.

"I can still feel him," Baralai said in the darkness.

"What do you mean?"

"The way it felt… to be entirely controlled. To have that mind inside of me. It… it's petrifying."

Gippal found his hand running up and down Baralai's shin and ankle. He stroked the outline of Baralai's leg in a manner he hoped was soothing for the other. "It's all over, Lai."

"It'll never be over."

"He's dead… gone… his spirit is… well, settled, I guess. Whatever it was that they did, it's all done now."

"Not within me."

Gippal swallowed. "He's not in you anymore."

"But he was… to feel so violated… a raping of the mind, of the soul."

Baralai was quivering. Gippal could feel his bones shaking. Suddenly, his problem of his missing penis seemed so very, very trivial. "You'll heal from that, Lai. You know you will."

"I… but there's so much I need to do. I need to fix all this that I've done—"

"That _Shuyin_ did," Gippal corrected.

"I need to find a way to get things back to normal," Baralai finished. "I need… to get you back to normal."

Gippal would have really liked his penis back, but… it wasn't important, he realized. Baralai was missing something even greater, something far more important and yet far more intangible than a mere body part. "Lai," Gippal said, reaching over and placing his hand on his friend's shoulder. "First, you need to heal."

"But, you—"

"Let others take care of you for once," Gippal interrupted, putting on a smile. "I think I can handle this being a woman thing for a while."

"Are you certain?" Baralai's voice was soft around the edges, hazy with weariness.

"Yeah," Gippal replied, shifting into a more comfortable position. He was going to have to get used to this body. "Anything you need, I'll take care of it for you."

"Anything?"

The gentleness in Baralai's tone made Gippal agree very readily. "Anything."

Baralai's eyes opened just slightly. "I want to go to bed."

Gippal couldn't suppress the laugh. "Yes, Your Highness," he said, standing up off the couch. Before Baralai could protest, Gippal had lifted him up into his arms and was carrying him off down the hallway toward what Gippal assumed was the master bedroom.

"I think I could get used to this," Baralai murmured sleepily as Gippal nudged open the door to the bedroom with his foot.

"What, having a beautiful girl carrying you to your bedroom?" Gippal had to snicker at that, too.

"Oh yeah… you are a girl, aren't you?" Baralai seemed amused.

"Need proof?"

"No thanks. Got proof enough right here."

Gippal was shocked to see that Baralai was looking at his chest. He could feel his face burning, and he knew that his skin was turning a shade of bright red. Why? He had them… people might as well look at them, right?

Depositing Baralai on the oversized bed, Gippal had to admire the suede comforter and… what looked like silk sheets. Silk sheets. Nothing less for the Praetor of New Yevon, right?

Gippal found himself wondering somewhere in the back of his mind how many people had slept between those particular silk sheets aside from Baralai himself. The man didn't seem like the type to sleep around with people, nor to even really engage in bedroom activities even with a long-time girlfriend.

Girlfriend. Gippal was rather amused that now he was equipped to be the Praetor of New Yevon's girlfriend.

He could be anybody's girlfriend.

He could even be another _girl_'s girlfriend.

Except… other girls were now other _guys_, and guys were now girls.

All except Baralai… who was already asleep, his head nestled in the feather pillows, his hair blending into the white sheets around him.

Gippal smiled and pulled the blankets up over Baralai's exhausted body. He was going to take care of Baralai until he got better, or at least until he was over this whole Shuyin thing and stopped talking madness about his possession. Baralai needed somebody, and Gippal took it upon himself – herself? – to be that somebody.

Now… he would just have to find some clothes that fit better.


	3. Part One Chapter Three

Chapter Three

"You're… wearing my clothes?"

Gippal jumped, nearly dropping the wooden spoon that he was using to stir his concoction on the stove. "You startled me," he explained, his voice cracking a little bit as his heart tried to jump out of his chest.

Baralai grinned, standing at the edge of the kitchen and leaning against the counter. "I wasn't intending to."

"Still, you're sneaky," Gippal replied, getting a better grasp on the spoon and turning back around to the stove.

"You are too, if you snuck into my closet and took my clothes."

Gippal smiled to himself. He really rather liked the long sky blue button-up shirt that he was wearing now. "They fit better," he said as a means of explanation.

"Because they're not skin-tight?" Baralai's voice was teasing, even more so as he walked up next to Gippal and peered at what was cooking on the stove.

"Exactly. And my stuff was dirty from the Farplane."

Baralai wrinkled his nose. "Did you wash it?"

Laughing, Gippal turned his head and actually looked at Baralai now. Standing next to him, the Praetor looked like a normal human being again, instead of the stiffness that had inhabited him when Shuyin was using him. The after-effects had faded, and the usual olive colour was returning to Baralai's skin. Gippal was happy to see that.

Baralai folded his bare arms across his chest, dark skin standing out against the loose white tank top he wore. Gippal thought that he liked Baralai better without his heavy green robe – he looked much more natural this way. "What are you cooking?"

"Sauteed _lyldic_," Gippal replied, lifting up a piece on the spoon and offering it to Baralai to taste.

"_Lyldic_?" Baralai's dark brown eyes looked confused for a moment as he stared at the spoon. "…cactus?"

"You could say that," Gippal replied, noticing that Baralai wasn't taking the bite that he was offering. He dropped the piece back into the oil and began the process of flipping all the pieces over.

"Aren't they alive?"

"Aren't chocobos alive?"

Baralai blinked. "I… guess you're right," he replied, still eyeing the sautéed _lyldic_ suspiciously. "What does it taste like?"

Gippal picked up the previously-ignored slice and offered it again. "Why don't you find out for yourself?"

Baralai took the spoon and sniffed the _lyldic_ slice. "Alright," he finally agreed. Gippal watched with anticipation as Baralai delicately took a small bite of the yellow vegetable. His teeth closed and broke the flesh gently, the skin making a small crackling sound as it split under his incisors. His lips closed as he broke his bite away from the whole, and his jaw moved up and down slowly as he chewed. His eyes were closed, his expression thoughtful as his cheeks twitched slightly. Gippal waited patiently, watching his throat expand and contract as he swallowed.

"It's much sweeter than I thought it would be," Baralai finally stated, his eyes flickering open after a moment of pause. "I like it."

Gippal couldn't suppress his smile. Difficult-to-please Baralai had been won over by the deceptively sweet _bayn-lildic_. "I'm glad," Gippal replied, trying to hide the grin. "I thought you would like it." Nevermind that it was one of the few healthy things that Gippal knew how to cook.

"You're cooking for me," Baralai said, suddenly seeming to realize what was going on. "Why?"

Gippal had thought that much was obvious. "You need food, Praetor."

"Understood," Baralai replied, still looking confused. "But why are you _cooking_?" He smiled a small smile, poking Gippal in the elbow. "I didn't even think you knew how to cook."

"Come on," Gippal protested, turning of the heat beneath the frying pan. "I cooked for you guys plenty of times during training."

"I wouldn't call that _cooking_…"

Half of Gippal wanted to laugh at Baralai's comment, the other half wanted to smack the little Praetor. Showing remarkable restraint, Gippal simply elbowed Baralai in the arm. "I've learned a few things," he admitted finally, spooning a large portion of the _lyldic_ slices onto a plate next to the stove. "Eat."

Baralai had no choice but to comply.

* * *

Gippal would have preferred not to wear a shirt during the hot Bevelle afternoon, but his current circumstances prevented him from doing that. While women going topless in Bikanel was almost a common occurrence on the hottest of days, Gippal had a feeling that he would either be lynched or molested if he went without a shirt in Bevelle.

Of course, Baralai didn't think it was hot. Nobody else did, except Gippal. He thought that perhaps he was getting sick.

Being ill, suddenly, seemed like far less of a problem than losing his penis.

Of course, Gippal had another problem as he walked through the marketplace of Bevelle. The _lyldic_ that he had made earlier must not have been made perfectly, or perhaps the oil he had used to cook it in had been old, because Gippal had quite a bad stomachache. A stomachache had never stopped him before, so Gippal went out anyway. He needed to get a few things for himself and for Baralai's apartment – toiletries, soap, food, milk, better fitting clothes, and chocolate. Baralai had tried to convince Gippal that chocolate was not a main food group, but Gippal had refused to listen. Everybody needed chocolate, right?

And chocolate sounded so good to his aching stomach.

He felt so hot, but he couldn't feel himself sweating like he normally could. That was one of the perks of the female body, Gippal thought, that sweat wasn't quite so obvious. He certainly felt cleaner, anyway, even though he was incredibly warm.

A few people in the marketplace recognized him, but Gippal was shocked that most people seemed intent on going about their own business. Some people asked him about Baralai, and Gippal always replied that the Praetor was recovering from the injuries that they had all sustained while fighting Vegnagun. To Gippal's surprise, the story hadn't yet been fully released… and he strongly doubted that anyone but those who had been in the Farplane would understand what had happened in those final moments. As far as he could tell, no one knew about Shuyin and the possession of Baralai and Nooj. All that was known was that someone had stolen Vegnagun and the Gullwings, the Leblanc Syndicate, and the Crimson Squad had fought that person and Vegnagun to bring safety to Spira again, but that the activation of Vegnagun had done "something" to the populace of Spira to change everyone's physical sex.

Gippal thought it was better that they didn't know the whole story. Sometimes, he wasn't even certain that _he_ knew the whole story. And he certainly didn't know why everyone's sex had been changed, even if their genders – their mindsets – remained the same.

As he forked over 30 gil for a week's supply of _bayn-lildic_, Gippal found that he had a problem with the next leg of his supply run. Baralai had told him as Gippal had been walking out the door that he should spend some money to get some clothing that fit better. Apparently the Praetor didn't appreciate Gippal raiding his closet, but the point was that Baralai had even loaned Gippal some extra money to facilitate the purchase of some new clothing.

The problem that Gippal had was what sort of clothing he should buy for himself. He was a woman now… and the clothes that would fit him best would be women's clothing. In his mind, however, he was still a man… albeit a man who proudly admitted to his favourite colour being purple, but a man nonetheless. He couldn't exactly persuade himself to run around dressed like Rikku or Yuna.

However, he was a girl, right? So, Gippal figured, he might as well enjoy being a girl and get the most out of the experience. He couldn't change it, at least not yet, so he decided to take the opportunity to learn as much about the fairer sex as he could. It would be helpful in the future, when he got himself changed back into the appropriate sex, to understand and, ultimately, pick up the girls. It was like reconnaissance.

Yes, Gippal thought as he packed the _lildic_ into the half-full backpack he wore to carry the supplies back to Baralai's apartment, he would use this opportunity to infiltrate the lairs of women, to obtain information to understand their ways and motivations.

The only problem was that there weren't any _real_ women in the women's areas. Oh well, Gippal would use the opportunity to gain what information he could.

Two hours later, Gippal was shocked to realize that it was two hours later.

How had he never done this before? He was astounded by the spectrum of coloured clothing, all sizes and styles, that existed in the Bevelle fashion marketplace.

Always before, Gippal had spent time only in specialty Al Bhed clothing stores, looking at the loose pants and the tall thick boots and the tight purple shirts. He had never even thought to experience the wonders of the other colours and styles.

He had been trying on different clothing the whole time, looking at his figure in the mirror from all angles. At first he had stayed in the wide spectrum of purples, from lavender to indigo to violet, but then he moved on to oranges and blues, even yellows and greens. To his surprise, the women's clothing fit his upper body much better, having been made to fit around the B-cups he suddenly had.

A man – who had one been a woman – who was the clerk of the store had even helped Gippal figure out the mystery that was the bra. He – she? – had loaned Gippal a measuring tape and told him to measure his chest directly underneath his breasts. Then he – yes, Gippal had decided to refer to the person as a 'he' – had looked appraisingly at Gippal's chest and proclaimed him to be a size B.

At one time, Gippal would have thought that he deserved to have bigger tits… but he had changed his mind now that he actually had them. Size B was just fine for him.

Besides, it wasn't like anybody was going to see them. Gippal was still too weirded out that guys were girls and girls were guys.

The measuring tape had told him 32, whatever that meant. The sales clerk – ever so helpful and probably quite eager for business – had giggled and offered to collect some samples for Gippal while he looked at the other clothes in the shop.

Men giggling was still an odd sight, but Gippal had spent a lot of time with Baralai, so it was getting progressively more normal – and Baralai was a _real_ man!

"Here!" the clerk said, hanging several bras over Gippal's bare arm. He had been trying to figure out whether he liked yellow or green better for the colour of the snug spaghetti strap shirt that went so nicely with the stonewashed flared jeans. "I like the yellow better," he informed Gippal, hanging the last of a startling number of bras on Gippal's wrist.

"Really? I thought the green went better with my eye…"

"I'll give you a deal on the two of them," the clerk offered.

"Alright, I'll take them," Gippal replied with a grin. "Can you get the yellow one with the orange straps though?"

"Anything for you," the clerk replied, taking the shirt away from Gippal. "Now, try those on, let me know how they fit."

Gippal eyed the bras on his arm warily. He went into the dressing room, pretending to have a clue of how he was supposed to put the things on.

Of course, he really didn't have any idea what he was doing, and wound up with his right arm through both straps and the clasps connected over his left shoulder. He made a disgusted noise, struggling to escape from the trap set by the dastardly garment.

"Are you alright in there?"

Gippal stiffened, his arms suspended oddly over his head by the elastic. "Just fine," he squeaked.

"Okay, let me know if you need any help!"

Gippal exhaled and tried once again to dislodge at least one of his arms from the evil contraption known as the bra. He had taken enough of these _off_ of girls… he should have been able to figure out how to put one _on_.

Pulling his left arm back over his head, Gippal thought he felt an opening. His hand slipped free of the loop in the strap! Aha! Finally, he was safe from the evils of the bra!

…not quite. He tripped over a stack of discarded clothing behind him and wound up on the floor…

…with the bra strap around his ankle.

"_Tyshed_!" he cursed, his voice carrying.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?"

Gippal sighed and attempted to dislodge his ankle from the bra. "Now that you mention it," he muttered, his ankle coming free and causing him to collapse on his back. "Yeah. I think I could use some help."

"There," the sales clerk, who had introduced himself as Linda, said, fixing the strap of the vivid purple bra that sat nicely on Gippal's chest. "See how it works?"

Gippal was too busy admiring himself in the mirror to answer the question. "Are they supposed to be this tight?"

"Of course," Linda said, stepping back and taking a good, long look. "Is it cutting off circulation?"

"It might in a few hours."

"Then that's how it's supposed to be."

Gippal couldn't suppress a grin. "So how many of these things should I have?"

"It depends. How long is this going to last?"

"Dunno." Gippal shrugged and turned around to face the ever-so-helpful clerk. "I'm actually getting kinda used to being a girl."

"You're a good-looking girl."

Gippal felt his heart jump into his throat. It was then that he realized that he – she? – was in his underwear, in a tiny room in a deserted clothing store, with a guy.

A guy who was eyeing him quite hungrily.

Grinning, Gippal decided to be coy. Like a girl. "Thanks," he said, trying to force his grin into a small smile. When he had difficulty, he remembered back to all the times he had made fun of Yuna with the guys from the Machine Faction. He'd had lots of practice at that… not that Yuna deserved to be made fun of, but because it was so _easy_.

Gippal bit his lower lip, pretending to be shy. "I don't know if I make a good girl, though."

Linda cocked a grin. "Are you certain you want to be a _good_ girl?"

Softening his voice like he knew Yuna would, Gippal said, "Is there something good about being a _bad_ girl?"

Linda then proceeded to answer Gippal's question.


	4. Part One Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

"You've been gone for a long time," Baralai murmured, lounging on the couch as late afternoon sunlight filtered in around the partially closed white curtains.

Gippal needed a shower. He felt so disgusting. "Yeah… I was, uh, shopping."

"Shopping?"

"Yeah." Gippal felt self-conscious. He could feel Linda's fluids _oozing_ out of him. He had vowed as he walked home that he would never, ever, ever ejaculate inside of a woman again.

Not that he seemed to have that option.

"What did you get?"

Gippal was busying himself by putting the groceries in the cooler. "Some more _bayn-lildic _for you, some chocolate for me, the stuff on the list you gave me, and some clothes."

"Did you find some that fit?" Baralai stood up off the couch and walked into the kitchen.

Gippal edged away as Baralai came closer. He probably smelled like sex. And there was probably a stain on his pants from the oozing fluids. "Yeah. Women… have nice clothes."

"I like your jeans," Baralai commented, stepping closer and reaching out to touch Gippal's dark purple silky spaghetti strap shirt.

Gippal backed away quickly… too quickly. Baralai stopped.

"Uh," Gippal said, trying to think of an explanation that wasn't 'I just had sex and I think I smell'.

"What's wrong?" Baralai looked at him warily.

"I, uh," Gippal stammered.

Baralai just nodded. "You don't have to tell me."

Gippal thought his face was probably turning rather red, and he looked away for a moment. Baralai had been telling him everything – mostly because Gippal had been prying – but now Gippal knew more about the man that he ever had before. Lai had willingly shared the information, though, had opened up in ways that Gippal hadn't thought the Praetor ever would.

Well… maybe Lai could help. "I feel really dirty, Lai," Gippal finally admitted.

Baralai raised his eyebrows, indicating for Gippal to continue.

"I, uh…" Gippal was losing his ability to articulate clearly. "I had sex."

"Ah." Baralai nodded sagely. "And?"

"It's gross."

Gippal chanced a look at Baralai, only to find out that the Praetor seemed to be barely containing a grin. "Maybe you should take a shower," Baralai offered, letting his grin show through in the form of a smile.

Feeling even worse than before, Gippal lowered his head and, without a word, dragged himself into the bathroom.

* * *

Gippal was never, ever, ever having sex again. This was gross. He suddenly understood why women always wanted men to wear condoms.

He bit his lower lip as he wrapped the washcloth around his finger and poked around inside himself, trying to clean the last vestiges of the fluids within. Every time he thought he was done, he stood back up and felt that there was more of it inside of him, and he was back to hunching over and propping his leg up on the side of the tub and poking around inside again.

He never felt clean. Even when the water ran cold, Gippal squeezed his eye shut against the frigid temperature, and continued to clean. In the cold water the soap didn't lather as well, but he still kept cleaning.

Until he heard a soft knocking on the door. "Gippal?"

Wringing out the washcloth, Gippal exhaled. "Still working."

"You've used all the hot water."

"I know." Gippal splashed some water on his face as he stood up straight. He hated that he still didn't feel clean. "I'll… be out in a second."

"Alright." Gippal could hear the door swishing against the rug as it opened. "I promise I'm not looking, but I'm leaving you something that'll help."

Gippal closed his eye and sighed. "Thanks Lai."

His response was the door clicking closed.

With the cold water washing over his shoulders, Gippal looked down at the drain of the bathtub, still not feeling clean. Picking up the washcloth, he figured that one more swipe couldn't hurt.

* * *

"This is a nice robe, Lai," Gippal said as he walked out into the living room. The dark brown terrycloth was thick and soft, and the robe hung down to his ankles. Gippal was in his bare feet, still with a few drops of water on his toes.

"I thought you'd like it," Baralai said, lifting his head to look at Gippal. "Come here, sit down with me."

Gippal had his hands folded together as he walked slowly over to the couch. "Thanks."

"It's not a problem," Lai replied, curling his legs under himself to make room for Gippal. "Now, talk to me, tell me what's bothering you."

Gippal sat down in a patch of sunlight, putting his hands on his knees. The robe parted slightly between his legs, and he folded the material over again to cover himself. He remained silent.

Of course, Baralai was staring at him.

That made Gippal feel even more uncomfortable.

"Are you okay?" Baralai's hand was suddenly on Gippal's shoulder.

"Yeah," Gippal replied, then shifted his legs. He still felt dirty inside, like he hadn't cleaned out all the fluid. He sighed. "No. I'm not okay."

Baralai nodded and squeezed Gippal's shoulder.

"I feel so disgusting," Gippal continued, "And I don't know why. It's not like I've never had sex before, but it's… somehow different."

"Was it consensual?"

Gippal looked over at Baralai. "Yeah," he replied with a frustrated sigh. "I thought it would be interesting. But it was really… just… uncomfortable. And now I can't even get myself clean, and it's like it's all still inside me, and it wasn't even that pleasurable!"

"You didn't get hurt, did you?"

"No, I mean, besides the obvious." Gippal slouched, closing his eye and leaning back into the couch. "It was kinda fun at first, all the new feelings, and how different it was. It was even kinda funny because he – she? – didn't know what to do. It was like, you know, when you're a virgin and you're all fumbling… it was like that all over again."

Baralai squeezed Gippal's shoulder gently again. "You'll be alright."

"I just feel so… dirty." Gippal put his hand over his eye, not knowing what else to say or do. "I've been a woman for like two days, and I've already messed up."

"Hey," Baralai said, and Gippal felt Lai's arm slide around his shoulders. It wasn't a menacing touch, nor was it lusty and hungry like Linda's… Baralai's touch was comfortable. "You haven't messed up. Everything'll be alright."

Gippal sighed and sank farther into Baralai's arms. "But… this shouldn't bother me. How many times have I had sex before? Like, twelve million?"

"Yes, but you've never been on the receiving end." Baralai's other arm was around Gippal's chest, encasing him entirely in an embrace. "It must be different… when you go from being the aggressor to being the… well… the passive one."

"But… that shouldn't matter…" Gippal laid his head on Baralai's shoulder. "Just because I have a vagina instead of a penis shouldn't change whether I'm passive or not."

"Though you're forced to be passive, this way."

Gippal sighed. "Maybe you're right," he said into Baralai's neck. "Sucks. I kinda like sex."

"Women like sex too, you know," Baralai murmured. "Maybe you just have to find the right person. Someone you actually like."

Gippal smiled. He would have said something else, but he was so comfortable wrapped up in the heavy, soft robe, and Baralai was so comfortable to lay against… before he could make his lips form any words, his eyelids closed heavily and he fell asleep in the warm light of the sunset.


	5. Part One Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

"What are you two doing? Get up!"

Gippal's eye opened very, very slowly. He could still feel the weight of the sleep on his eyelashes, flecks falling into his eye as he struggled to see through the blinding light of the waking world.

He realized with mild surprise that daylight was coming in through the picture window, illuminating the room, and he was still in Baralai's bathrobe.

And he was still laying on Baralai… even if the Praetor was currently very opposed to the situation and trying to struggle free.

At least he was dry.

"Nooj, what are you doing here?" Baralai asked as he stood up, effectively depositing Gippal on the floor. Gippal muttered indignantly as he tried to stand up without revealing too much of his body.

"Is it true that you remain male?" Nooj asked, striding into the apartment as if he owned the place.

"Me?" Baralai asked, smoothing his shirt free of the wrinkles left by Gippal's face.

"Yes," Nooj replied, leaning back against the counter.

Gippal had half-expected a crack about his own current feminine traits; then again, it was Nooj who was talking. And he looked like he meant serious business.

"Yes," Baralai finally admitted. "It seems I'm the only one in all of Spira."

"You know something, don't you?" Gippal finished tying the dark brown robe into a very serious knot and walked into the kitchen, trying to look important.

"No," Nooj replied, looking up at the ceiling overtop of his glasses. "That's the problem. I think the solution lies with Baralai's situation."

"I think it's because I wasn't _me_ when everything happened," Baralai suggested.

"Maybe Shuyin got turned into a girl," Gippal said, sitting on the counter next to Nooj. "Bet that pissed that Lenne chick off."

"Everything happened when Vegnagun's keyboard was put into operation," Nooj said, clearly ignoring Gippal's remark. "It must have done something to the Farplane. The answer resides within."

"All answers lie within the Farplane," Baralai said in a low voice. "Though, perhaps this answer was destroyed with Vegnagun."

"That's not possible." Nooj took a step away from where Gippal was sitting on the counter. "If it was Vegnagun causing this situation, then the situation itself would have been destroyed with the destruction of the cause."

"What if Vegnagun only _initiated_ the change?"

Nooj nodded at Baralai. "And you were shielded from it because you were inside of it when it happened."

"You mean we have to go _back_ there?" Gippal folded his arms unhappily and swung his legs in the air. "I never want to go to that place again."

"Do you want your manhood back?"

Gippal had to admit that Nooj had a point.

"But Nooj, the Farplane is endless," Baralai said, pulling himself up to sit on the counter next to Gippal. "Where would we go to look? Where would we even start?"

"Can't we just go in and start looking around?" Gippal asked. "We're clearly not going to be able to figure anything out here."

"There's a problem with that." Nooj turned away from the two of them. "The entrance to the Farplane in Guadosalam is blocked off."

"Can't we just go down one of the holes in the temples?" Baralai asked.

Nooj shook his head. "Not in the ones I've been to. The holes no longer lead to the Farplane – only to a layer of bedrock underneath the Temples."

Baralai looked absolutely perplexed. "Then… how do we get there?"

Nooj looked over his shoulder at Baralai for a moment, then turned away again. "I have a plan."

"You always have a plan," Gippal replied, quickly jumping off the counter to stand next to Nooj. "And it always involves you dying."

Nooj smirked and slowly turned his head toward Gippal. "I came to say goodbye."

With that, he brushed Gippal away and moved toward the door.

"Wait, Nooj!" Baralai, too, jumped off the counter and rushed forward, grabbing Nooj's arm. "You can't be serious. There's another way to get there."

"Yeah, come on," Gippal echoed, grabbing Nooj's other arm. "If _I_ can get there, walking right in without getting the wrath of Yevon, then there's gotta be a bunch of other ways, too."

Nooj gave them both passing glares and took another step toward the door. "I knew you two would try to stop me."

"Yeah," Gippal replied quickly, trying to pull Nooj back – the other had always been stronger than him anyway, and now was no different. "Because your course of action is stupid."

"It's the only course of action," Nooj replied flatly, shrugging Gippal off.

"No!" Baralai interjected. "You can't just do that, we'll—"

"You're too late."

Gippal's heart leapt into his throat. "What?"

"You're too late," Nooj repeated, shoving Baralai aside. "It is done. It was merely a formality and a courtesy to bid you two farewell, since you will be my partners in this."

"What?" Gippal grabbed Nooj's arm again, trying to feel whether the man was serious or not. "Partners? You _killed_ yourself without even letting us know!"

"Perhaps I should have sought out different partners."

"No," Baralai said, putting his hand on Gippal's shoulder. "Nooj's course of action was rash—"

"Yeah, he's _dead_," Gippal informed Baralai, as if he had missed the point.

"—but it is for the good of Spira," Baralai finished."

"You are _both_ crazy!" Gippal put his palms to his temples, turning away. "You think it's okay that he just violated his own honour, just as a convenient escape to find the death that he so desperately wants?" Listening to his blood pound in his ears, he continued quickly, "Because he's not _man_ enough to handle the situation, because he just wanted an _easy_ way out—"

"Are you finished?" Nooj interrupted.

"No!" Gippal turned around and glared at Nooj. "How can you do this to _us_, to just kill yourself like you're inconsequential to other people?" He took two angry steps toward the man – the woman – and fumed. "You're selfish, even in your own death. You think of no one else, not the people who have become your friends, not the people who have grown close to you, not those who support you and _value_ you—"

"Gippal!" Baralai's voice held an edge that the Praetor hardly ever used, and it surprised Gippal to hear it. "Stop it."

Gippal found himself unable to go against Baralai's order. The sheer intensity of the man's voice was enough to quell Gippal's anger and replace it with something else – self-consciousness. Was he being the selfish one here? His friend had just _killed_ himself! How could Gippal have been so crude, so terrible, so—

His stomach hurt.

"Now that you're done," Nooj said, looking back and forth between the two of them, "I am going to the Farplane, because a Summoner is going to Send me. However," a wry grin came across his face, "you two are to find me in the Farplane. I'll find a way to open the entrance in Guadosalam, and then you two are to go there as soon as it becomes stable."

"But what if you can't open it?" Baralai wondered.

"Are you doubting my abilities?"

Baralai's face drew into an expression of pure shock. "No!" he said. "But it's been closed, and who knows if—"

Nooj held up his hand. "I will open it." That was the end of that discussion. "You two are to come and questions shall find their answer. Do not tell others of this endeavour."

Gippal had to admit that Nooj sounded rather confident in himself, and that made Gippal feel better about the whole situation. Minus, you know, the fact that Nooj was _dead_.

But… really, hadn't he been kind of dead all along?

If one is seeking death, Gippal wondered, are they really dead even if they are still technically alive?

In that, Nooj hadn't really changed at all. Now, he just had access to the Farplane.

"Deal," Gippal finally answered. "Make us a path, and we'll follow it."


	6. Part One Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

Gippal was getting worried about a lot of things.

First of all, Nooj was still dead, and there had been no word about any openings in the Farplane. People were only panicking about the closing off, and still Nooj hadn't been able to break through. Gippal was restless… and it had only been a day and a half since Nooj was Sent.

And then, Baralai wasn't getting any better. The Praetor was still depressed, still moping, and his energy seemed to be entirely lacking. Gippal noticed that Baralai did nothing but sleep most of the time… he would sleep eight hours at night, and then wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, and be listless and sleepy again. Gippal spent most of his time either putting Baralai to bed or laying in bed himself.

Gippal was trying not to be concerned about his stomachache… but it was terrible. He felt like he was going to vomit most of the time, or that his entire body was going to collapse in on itself. He thought it was his diet, but no matter what he ate, it only seemed to get worse. Except for chocolate.

Gippal took another bite out of the chocolate bar he had been snacking on for the past hour, trying to make it last because it was his last one. He didn't want to have to go out and get any more. That would require leaving Baralai.

He couldn't leave Baralai. The man needed him, clearly, and it drove Gippal insane to even think about leaving.

But he needed chocolate. And he also needed to go to the bathroom.

Dragging himself out from underneath the covers, Gippal crawled to the bathroom. He managed to stand up and, suddenly remembering that he didn't _have_ to stand up to go to the bathroom anymore, promptly sat down on the toilet seat.

Sighing, Gippal put his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. Why was his stomach hurting? It was the worst stomach cramp he'd ever had. Was it part of making the switch from man to woman?

The last of his urine tinkled in the water in the toilet, and Gippal sniffled and tore off some toilet paper. He stood up and wiped, from front to back just as he had learned was the way to do things, and pulled his loose black silken pajama pants back up around his hips. He turned to flush the toilet…

…and screamed.

"Gippal!"

Gippal barely heard his own name over the screaming. He backed away from the toilet, unable to look away, staring and screaming and pointing.

"Gippal, are you alright?"

"I'm bleeding! I'm dying!"

"What?" Baralai's voice sounded concerned. "Hold on, I'll help you!"

The door burst open and Baralai tumbled in, nearly losing his footing on the rug in front of the sink. "Gippal!" He threw his arms around the other, as if trying to steady him. "What did you do?"

Gippal quivered and pointed.

Baralai slowly turned and followed Gippal's pointing. He narrowed his eyes, and then started to chuckle. "Gippal," he said, putting his hand on the other's shoulder. "You're not dying."

"But… there's blood in my…"

"Gippal," Baralai said, his face becoming suddenly serious. "You're a woman."

Had he missed something? "Yeah, I know… but… I'm dying!"

"You aren't dying." Baralai patted Gippal on the cheek. "You're menstruating."

"I'm WHAT?"

Baralai sighed. "I will call the women's house and ask them to bring you some supplies. For now… put some wadded up toilet paper in your underwear to mop up the blood and… calm down."

Gippal emerged from the bathroom, feeling a little sick. His underwear had also become substantially more uncomfortable with the addition of the plastic and cotton of the… _pad_ that had been brought from the women's house.

"Come here, sit," Baralai offered, patting the couch next to him. Gippal noticed that there was a glass of water and a bottle of pills on the table. "This'll make your stomach feel better."

Gippal sat down and gingerly took the offered pills and drank nearly the entire glass of water. "Okay, so Lai?" Gippal leaned back on the couch, closing his eye. "Being a woman sucks."

"I can imagine," Baralai replied, ruffling Gippal's hair affectionately.

"Mm, don't think so."

Baralai was silent for a few moments. "You know, I was supposed to be a girl."

Gippal blinked open his eye and stared at him. "You what?"

Baralai gathered his legs up underneath him as he leaned over on the armrest of the couch. "I was supposed to be a girl."

"Explain?"

Baralai smiled softly. "The doctors and mages attending to my mother were incorrect about the gender of her unborn baby," he said as though it was the most normal thing in the world. "I had three brothers, you know, and she was hoping for a girl to carry on the white magic tradition in the family. So… when they said that their scans showed a girl, she was so excited. She talked to the baby, played music, discussed how the baby girl was going to grow up. She even did early exercises with the baby to cultivate white magic talents… because women, for whatever reason, make the best white mages."

"But it was really…"

"Me," Baralai replied, smiling. "They were wrong, and she was so upset when she looked at me, and it was another little boy."

Gippal watched Baralai, suddenly aware of a plausible reason behind so much of what made Baralai the way he was. The smallness, the politeness, the daintiness… all of those things that Baralai was were rather feminine. Gippal had always noticed that, but no one ever said anything to him.

Now, there was a logical reason.

"They still treated you right, didn't they?"

Baralai nodded. "It wasn't exactly the best position… since I was a disappointment from the beginning. I'd like to think they'd be proud of me now." He smiled and folded his hands in his lap. "I've always worked on my white magic, even if I'm not the best."

"Your mother was a really good white mage, was she?"

"Yes," Baralai replied. "My mother… was amazing. She was the top white mage in Yevon… she died with my oldest two brothers fighting Sin."

"I'm sorry—"

"Don't be." Baralai reached over and put his hand affectionately on Gippal's knee. "Thank you, though."

"You'll probably have brilliant white mage babies, though," Gippal tried, putting his hand over Baralai's. "Your mom'll be proud of her grandkids."

Baralai just smiled.

That made Gippal worry. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Baralai replied, looking back up at Gippal. "Thank you for worrying."

Gippal wished that he could do or say something to help. He wished that he had known Baralai's mother so that he could assure him that she would be proud of him now. He resolved that he would do everything he could to make Baralai gain some confidence in himself.

He reached over and put his hand on Baralai's shoulder. Seeing the expression of distant pain on Lai's features compelled Gippal to lean forward and entirely embrace Baralai. The man seemed to relax when Gippal touched him, and it was an invigorating experience for Gippal.

"You're a good man, Lai," Gippal said, lacing his fingers through Baralai's soft, white hair. "Don't think anything else."

"Mm," Baralai replied. "Good enough to get possess—"

"Don't," Gippal interrupted, pulling back from Baralai and giving him a stern glare. "That's over, man. Stop it."

Baralai's eyelids fluttered closed. "I can't ever forget."

"I know," Gippal replied, putting his fingers on Baralai's tawny cheek. "I know. Though you can't forget, you can move past this."

"I can't."

"You can."

Baralai's eyes were still closed. Gippal exhaled softly. "Lai," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'll help."

"I don't want to be a burden on you."

"Are you kidding?" Gippal smiled, brushing Baralai's eyelashes until the Praetor's chocolate eyes opened. "I'm the one who thought I was _dying_ earlier."

A smile floated delicately on Baralai's lips.


	7. Part One Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

"Nooj is taking his sweet time with all of this," Gippal muttered to himself as he paced through the kitchen for the fourteenth time. He made a turn at the refrigerator and paced back into the living room.

He was well aware of how much walking around was making his menstrual cramps not go away, but he couldn't just sit still, because then it would all _collect_, all that blood, and he would feel gross.

But, well, for Gippal at this point, feeling gross was pretty much automatic. Not only did he have blood coming out of his body – which was normal! – but he also had this mysterious other fluid, which only made the blood even worse, if that was possible. It made it all… goopy. And stringy. Whatever the other stuff was, Gippal wished it would stop existing, particularly when he woke up in the mornings.

This was the fourth day of his _period_ – Gippal hated the thing. He hated menstruation and everything that went along with it. Anything brownish-red made him seethe – it was becoming a conditioned reaction. He abhorred doing laundry. He loathed pajamas because he couldn't sleep without them. Even the _word_ 'period' filled him with intense revulsion. He couldn't even _write_ anything because coming to the end of a declarative sentence was an exercise in anger management.

Gippal let out an angry, frustrated sigh and made a turn at the bedroom door and paced back into the kitchen.

"Are you sighing like that to get sympathy, or attention?"

"Both," Gippal said, turning to look at Baralai. "Can't you wave your magical little hand and make my—" He paused, still uncomfortable with the word. "—_period_ go away?"

Baralai smiled and finished tying his bandana through his shower-wet hair. "I'm afraid I don't have that kind of power," he informed Gippal with an even voice.

"Well, what good are you then?" Gippal snapped with more irritation than he meant.

Baralai looked at him and then fell silent. "None, obviously," he replied, turning away and walking back into the bedroom.

Gippal blinked and watched him go. Exhaling furiously, he turned to pace back into the kitchen.

* * *

"Lai, I'm sorry," Gippal said, forty two minutes later. 

Baralai blinked at Gippal standing in the doorway. "For what?"

Gippal blinked back. "Snapping at you."

Laughing shallowly, Baralai looked back down at the box he was sorting through. "It's okay. I forgive you."

"It's this woman thing, you know, I really hate being on—"

"I know," Baralai interrupted quickly, holding up his tawny hand. "But it'll be over soon."

"Thank Yevon," Gippal said, flopping down on the floor next to where Baralai was sitting. "What're you looking at?"

"Old things."

"Thank you, Mr. Cryptic." Gippal sat up on his knees and peered at the box. It was full of spheres, all glowing the dark orange that signified that they had been recorded on. "Spheres?"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Baralai replied.

"That's my line, Lai," Gippal informed him. "You stole it."

Baralai didn't respond, which made Gippal worry a little. "What are they spheres of?" he asked, trying to force conversation.

"The past," Baralai answered slowly, leaning over to get the lid for the box.

Gippal wanted to throw something at Baralai, but nothing was within reach. "You really are being cryptic," he said, taking hold of Baralai's elbow so he couldn't close the box. "What are they?"

Baralai sighed, and Gippal recognized the sound as submission. He would have cheered had his uterus not been trying to claw its way up through his stomach. "They're spheres of my parents," Baralai finally replied, smiling slightly. "I… after talking with you the other day… I miss them."

"That's… really good, Lai, that you still have these." Gippal was trying to be helpful, but he never really knew what to say in situations like this. "Do you want to watch them?"

Baralai looked down at his hands which held an old orange sphere. He sighed softly. "Yes."

_A woman crouched on the screen, staring helplessly out into the universe. She had dark olive skin and deep brown eyes, and black hair that fell over her shoulders and cascaded down over her knees. "It's been a year," she said, her voice low and shaking. "A year since you died, my son."_

_She lowered her head, her hair shimmering in the light. "I never even saw you. I don't know what you looked like. I wish I did… I would have loved to have known you. You would have been a wonderful man, my only son…"_

_She looked off to the side, and there was a creaking sound. "I'll be… out in a moment," she whispered. A muffled voice came from somewhere offscreen, and then the sound of the door closing. _

"_Today would have been your birthday," the woman whispered, folding her hands together. "One year old. But… you were lost. Too early. I don't know what happened, what I did wrong, but maybe… my body wasn't meant to carry a boy." She sniffled and rubbed her nose with her thumb. "You would have been so tall. You were growing so well, so nicely there inside my womb… I wish I knew what just made you… stop." _

_She looked down, then back up again. "My son… you're in the Farplane now, toddling in the glens. I wish I could go to see you, but… we don't have access to those places. Someday, I'll see you, I'll meet you, and I'll finally be able to say to you so you can hear me…"_

_There was a knocking from offscreen again. The woman bit her lip and looked over. "I love you, Baralai. I'll be with you soon."_

Baralai was paralyzed. He just stared, his lips slightly parted, eyes open wide. The sphere clicked off, replaced by the usual static.

Gippal blinked repeatedly, not quite daring to look over at Baralai.

Then, he realized that he was supposed to be taking care of Baralai, and reached over to put his arm around Baralai's shoulders.

Without making a sound, Baralai laid his head against Gippal's shoulder. He finally closed his eyes and moved closer, and Gippal let him hide there for a while.


	8. Part One Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

"It's not right," Baralai said, staring at the screen with the sphere paused. The tears had dried on his face, forming into little trails of salt. "This has to be a trick. That's _not my mother_."

Gippal had had a long night. He and Baralai had watched more than ten of the spheres… everything from watching Lai's parents frolic on a beach to magic lessons given by his father to secret sex videos that Gippal would have preferred not to come across. "Lai, how could anyone fake this?"

"I don't know," Baralai said, massaging his temples with his fingers. "But… my mom was the white mage. I _know_ that. I know it deep within my soul. She had the long white hair that is inherent in white mages like her—"

"Your hair," Gippal remarked, eyeing Baralai curiously.

"Yes." Baralai's tawny fingers ran through his hair slowly. "I… inherited the hair, but not the talents."

"Are you _sure_ your mom was--?"

"Absolutely," Baralai replied, hanging his head and sighing. "I'm not crazy, Gippal. I know it was my mother who tried to teach me white magic, who spent hours with me when I was a child, trying to prove to herself and to me that I had the ability." He looked up at the sphere screen again. "My father… he was dark skinned with black hair. It's like they're _opposites_ on this sphere."

"Maybe it's a malfunction with the spheres," Gippal said, leaning back against the couch. "But that's a stupid idea. How could all of them malfunction in exactly the same way?"

"It has to be a trick," Baralai repeated. "It has to. Someone tampered with my spheres."

"Lai?"

Baralai looked over helplessly, his lower lip quivering in a way that made Gippal want to hug him.

Gippal sighed. "Your mom – or that woman, whoever she was – said you were dead."

"I know," Baralai replied, looking away and out the window. "It's a trick. I'm not dead."

"Are you certain?"

"Gippal, I would _know_ if I were dead."

Gippal sighed. This was impossible. "Well, let's watch this one, how's that? Maybe… there'll be something there."

Baralai nodded, and pressed the button on the sphere to make it play.

"_My baby boy," the woman said, rubbing her hands over her navel. "My baby boy, he's going to be so strong and proud, a perfect white mage."_

"_Merla," came a male voice from behind the sphere screen. "Don't get your expectations up. We have to make certain he's inherited everything."_

"_But it's a boy, Danel, finally, after all these girls," she replied, looking over into the screen. "A boy. **Your** boy. He'll be the best white mage in all of history."_

_She ran her hands over her bulging stomach, obviously several months pregnant. _

_Another hand appeared from behind the recorder. "Is he kicking again?"_

"_Yeah," she replied, smiling coyly at a point above the sphere screen. "He's kicking so strongly. He'll be so healthy and strong…"_

"_Merla," the man said again, the hand that seemed like it belonged to him pausing a few inches above her navel. "You're going to give him an ego if you keep talking about him so proudly."_

"_He deserves it. He'll be—"_

Baralai turned away from the screen as it clicked off. "I can't watch this anymore," he said, burying his face against the back cushions of the couch. "I'm not dead. I'm not a white mage. I had brothers, not sisters. My mother was a white mage." He clenched his hands into fists. "None of this makes _sense_!"

"Lai," Gippal tried, leaning forward and putting his hands on the other's shoulders. "It's just gotta be some kind of mix-up, you know? Don't worry so much about it."

"Don't _worry_?" Baralai demanded, clenching his eyes closed so that wrinkles appeared around his temples. "How can I just not _worry_? I'm _dead_, Gippal. My mother – who isn't my mother, but says she is! – says that I died in her _womb_. I was a stillbirth. I am even more of a failure than I initially thought! I—"

"Don't _say_ that, Lai," Gippal tried, grabbing harder onto the other's shoulders. "This is all a bunch of lies. It doesn't make sense for you to be a stillbirth."

"And how?" Baralai demanded, finally looking over at Gippal with a hard glare. "How doesn't it makes sense? I think it makes more sense. Shuyin _chose_ me because I am already _dead_. He chose Nooj first because, being a Deathseeker, he would probably be the easiest to manipulate. But no! He found someone easier – a walking unsent, someone who is already dead, someone who can't even—"

"**Lai**." Gippal hated that harsh voice he had just used with his friend. "Stop it."

"Then you tell me, Gippal, how this is all _okay_."

"_Dead people don't age_," Gippal said, enunciating every word as clearly as he could. "If you were a stillbirth, you'd still be that size now. You'd still be underdeveloped. You'd still be a baby."

Baralai looked absolutely perplexed, and that made Gippal feel a little more confident.

"Besides, how can a dead person possess another dead person? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?" Gippal knew that was probably the exact wrong thing to say the moment he said it. It helped that Baralai's eyes fluttered closed, ripping Gippal's heart out with a single seemingly harmless motion.

Gippal sighed. "There are other things dead people can't do, too, you know," he continued, hoping to make Baralai feel better in any way possible.

"Like what?" Baralai asked, his voice quivering.

"Like… get hungry. You've been hungry before, right? Dead people don't need to eat to stay alive, because they aren't alive."

Baralai nodded, his motions miniscule.

"They also probably can't go to the bathroom, because they don't eat, so they don't have anything to get rid of." Gippal didn't even have to dig for these things – it felt like he had explained not being dead to someone before. "They also smell bad, probably, because dead people just… do that. They smell bad. Because they're dead."

Baralai blinked and wrinkled his nose slightly, as though he were smelling something.

"You don't smell bad, Lai," Gippal assured him. "You smell really good, actually. I like the way you smell."

Baralai didn't look convinced. "What else… is there? Since you seem to know so much."

Gippal thought for a moment, watching Baralai and his small motions as he tried to keep himself from shaking. He wracked his brain for the most obvious thing in the whole entire world, the thing that would make Baralai believe that he wasn't dead. He searched his brain, trying to come up with some logical thing that Baralai _had_ to have or be or do that would indicate without a doubt that he was alive.

Gippal said the first thing that came to his mind. "Dead people can't have sex."

Baralai blinked. "Can't… have sex?"

"No," Gippal replied, leaning back on the couch. "It's logical, right? I mean, if you're dead, then you have no urge to procreate, right? And therefore, you wouldn't, you know, have sex. And dead people don't have blood running through their veins, so they can't get an erection. I _know_ you get erections, Lai."

Baralai's olive face turned a shade of olive-red. "How do you know that?"

Gippal smiled coyly. "I've been _sleeping_ next to you for like a week now, or have you forgotten the beautiful woman who you always beg to never leave your bed?"

Baralai looked away shyly. "I don't _beg…_"

"Right, you ask nicely."

"You don't even try to leave!"

"Because I know it's useless to go against your wishes."

Baralai sighed. "I really appreciate it, though."

"Clearly," Gippal replied, smiling as he shoved Baralai's shoulder lightly, "with those erections and all."

"Hey!" Baralai, seeming not too pleased, shoved Gippal back. "I can't help it. It's part of being a man." He grinned broadly. "Not that _you_ would know, Miss Gippal."

"_Miss_ Gippal?"

"Certainly seems like it to me."

"You only know because you feel me up at night."

"At least I don't have random sex with clerks at clothing stores."

Gippal felt bile suddenly creep up into his throat at the mention of that incident. He still hadn't recovered from the dirty act, and for some reason even just remembering it brought distinct chills to his spine. He looked away, trying to swallow back the sickness creeping into his mouth.

"Gippal…?"

Gippal waved his hand, trying to divert Baralai's concern.

It didn't work.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that," Baralai said, coming over and wrapping his arms around Gippal's chest. "I know you're still recovering from that, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you—"

"Lai," Gippal said once he had regained possession of himself. "It's okay." He turned around to face Baralai, to assure him that everything really was alright. "I know you were just teasing."

"I'm still sorry," Baralai said, lowering his eyes away from Gippal's. "I really don't like hurting you."

Gippal, still just a slight bitshorter than Baralai, lifted his fingers to the other's chin and nudged his face upward. "You didn't hurt me," Gippal replied, trying to smile. He was telling the truth, even if the revulsion was still working its way into his mouth. "Promise. I just… am acting weird, that's all."

"But… you don't deserve that. You should be taken care of. Everything should be perfect and wonderful for you."

Gippal's heart leapt into his throat. Baralai sounded like a man in love.

"And," Baralai continued, "I don't ever want to hurt you, even unintentionally."

"Lai, you didn't hurt me. Stop feeling bad."

"But you're doing so much for me." Baralai looked down at the floor again, much to Gippal's dismay. "You're so kind, and you've been reassuring me this whole time, and then I just insult you…"

"You didn't insult me," Gippal asserted, putting his hands on Baralai's back, embracing him. "You just told the truth, and played my game. It's alright. I can dish it out, and I can take it."

"But—"

"No buts!"

"Gippal—"

"Lai, just… stop talking, if you're going to say something negative about yourself."

"But how do you know if—"

"Lai, what did I say?" Gippal smiled, bringing his fingers underneath Baralai's chin to lift his face up again. "If you keep trying to talk bad about yourself, I'm going to have to do something about it."

"Like what?"

Gippal hadn't gotten that far yet. "Um… I don't know." He shifted his eye back and forth. "But it'll be bad."

"Right." Baralai looked away again. "But I'm only saying the truth. Just like you said."

"There's a difference between saying the truth and ignoring everything," Gippal replied.

"There's nothing good about—"

"What did I say, Baralai?" Gippal put on his best stern face.

"That you'd 'do something' about me saying the truth about myself." Baralai folded his hands together dangerously close to Gippal's crotch.

"Exactly." Gippal still hadn't figured out what yet, but he tried to act like it was going to be horrible. "So, just, stop thinking bad things about yourself."

"But how can I, when my memories about my mother are clearly wrong—"

"Lai…"

"—and I'm supposedly dead—"

"I'm warning you…"

"—and I'm stuck here—"

Purely for the purposes of shutting him up, Gippal kissed Baralai.


	9. Part One Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Frankly, Gippal was surprised it hadn't happened earlier, what with Baralai sleeping with him every night, but it was still a shock.

He had hoped that he wouldn't be impulsive enough to kiss Baralai for the first time for a reason like this. Gippal would have far preferred to kiss the Praetor in a more romantic setting, with trees and flowers and other particularly girly things. Or even when they were cuddling in bed would have been better.

But no, he had to kiss him _now_. With the curtains closed and the room half-dark, the only sound being the buzz of the static from the still-running sphere -- and there they were with their lips locked.

At first, Baralai's eyes had flown wide, making Gippal's heart race. He had thought for sure that the Praetor was going to kill him. But then, Gippal had just decided to close his eyes and let it happen… of course, it helped that Baralai relaxed after a second and closed his eyes too.

Gippal knew. He had peeked. Baralai certainly seemed like he wasn't objecting… he even looked like he was enjoying it.

Of course, Gippal didn't want to push the limits. He _was_ doing this just to get Baralai to shut up, after all.

Wasn't he?

It didn't matter. All that mattered was this kiss… this act that would make Baralai feel better. That was what Gippal was all about. He needed to make Baralai get over the misgivings he had about himself, needed to make him feel comfortable and loved and wanted, needed to make him feel like he wasn't a complete and utter failure.

Of course, Gippal hadn't gotten that far yet. He was still trying to make Baralai feel like a normal person again after being possessed by Shuyin… matters had been severely complicated by the introduction of Baralai's new family issues.

If there was one thing that Gippal knew, it was that Baralai wasn't dead.

Then again, he hadn't known that Auron was dead, and clearly he was. He hadn't even been able to tell that Nooj was dead when he _walked into_ Baralai's apartment, fresh off the wrong end of a shotgun.

Gippal would have sighed had his mouth not been preoccupied with Baralai's tongue.

He hadn't slept with those people before, though. He hadn't stayed next to them through a whole night, shaking them awake when nightmares made their bodies shake. He hadn't seen their faces first thing in the morning, hadn't heard them grumble 'good morning' sleepily… with the exception of Nooj. But Nooj hadn't been dead yet when Gippal had experienced those things. Besides, sleeping in a military tent in separate sleeping bags in the middle of a desert was quite different from cuddling in a plush bed with white silk sheets in a luxury penthouse apartment.

Gippal just liked the sheets. At least, that was what he told himself. It wasn't the natural warmth that Baralai exuded or the way he breathed ever so softly in his sleep or the way Gippal's heartbeat slowed down peacefully whenever he felt Baralai's arms around him.

Yes, and he was just kissing Baralai to get him to shut up. Of course that required a three-minute kiss! Why wouldn't it?

Gippal had the terrible feeling that he was fooling himself, but he didn't know how, exactly. That was disturbing.

"Gippal?"

Ah, the kiss had ended. That meant he would have to explain himself. He wondered how, exactly, he was going to do that.

"Why did you just kiss me?"

Time to start pulling an explanation out of his ass. Right. "Umm," Gippal started, reflexively running his fingers through his hair. "Because, even though I know how much you'd like to have sex with me, I can't because I'm on my period?"

Baralai just stared at him. His pupils quivered like a scared lamb.

"Joking, Lai," Gippal said, trying to cover for himself as best as he could. "Um, I, uh, kissed you because… you deserve it?"

"I _deserve_ to be kissed by my best friend?"

Yeah, Baralai wasn't exactly happy, it seemed. "I mean, because, you just kept saying all that _cred_ about yourself and I wanted you to stop it," Gippal tried.

Baralai folded his arms and turned his face away from Gippal. "Couldn't you have done something else? _Anything_ else?"

"What, would you rather I punch you next time?" Gippal tried to smile.

Baralai looked down, blinking his eyes excruciatingly slowly.

"Is that a yes?" Gippal asked, trying to lower his head to catch Baralai's gaze.

Baralai mumbled something that Gippal couldn't understand.

"What?" Gippal asked, putting his fingers under Baralai's jaw and lifting his head up. "I can't understand you if you're talking to the ground."

"I said," Baralai's eyes darted away, and then continued, "No, I wouldn't like it if you did that."

"So it was okay for me to kiss you?"

Baralai swallowed and nodded.

"Good," Gippal replied, finally removing his fingers from the Praetor's chin. "I was worried that you were going to kill me."

"I would never do that," Baralai said, a small smile finally forming on his lips. "You've been… so kind to me lately, the only one I can really trust and rely on, it seems."

"Hey," Gippal said, putting his fingers back under Baralai's chin. He just couldn't keep his hands off the other. "There're plenty of people you can trust. You've just gotta wait for them all to calm down from the whole sex-switching thing."

Baralai nodded. "And find out what happened to those spheres."

"Exactly."

"And," Baralai continued, turning to look out the window, "make Nooj hurry up with the opening of the Farplane. I'm not certain I can wait any longer."

"I'm giving him until the end of my… _period_," Gippal said, standing behind Baralai and putting his arms around the other's shoulders. "Because I don't think I can travel like this. _Then_ I'm going after him."

There was a long, comfortable silence. Gippal felt very comfortable, standing behind Baralai the way he was, holding him, showing that he loved him.

"Let's put the spheres away," Baralai finally suggested.

Gippal was happy to hear that Baralai wanted to move on past that weirdness. Unfortunately, he wasn't happy to hear that Baralai wanted to move out of his arms. "One more kiss?" Gippal tried.

Baralai looked back over his shoulder at Gippal. "You know… I… only like women, right, Gippal?"

Gippal was half-shocked to hear that. He was only half-shocked because, he remembered, he was currently a woman. "What's the problem, then?"

"You're… not exactly a woman," Baralai tried.

"What more do I need to be a woman?" Gippal asked, laying his chin on Baralai's shoulder. "I have the required parts. I have an hourglass figure, breasts, a vagina, nice soft skin, and I actually smell good for probably the first time in my life."

Baralai chuckled lightly. "I mean… you're still Gippal. Inside of you, you're a man."

"Just like how you're a woman, in some part of yourself?"

Baralai's light chuckling stopped suddenly, his face freezing in shock and fear. "What makes you say that?"

Gippal nuzzled Baralai's cheek. "You think I didn't notice? You walk on your toes, you have always had this dainty feminine quality about you that I could never quite figure out. You take pleasure in your appearances, you hate being dirty, and you always like it when I hold you at night." Baralai was staring at Gippal like he was being insulted, but Gippal continued anyway. "You've always had that about you… it's what makes you so different and intriguing from everybody else. That's why, when you told me that your mother thought you were going to be a girl and treated you like one from the beginning, so many things made sense."

Baralai's eyes turned to the ground at that point. "Is it that obvious?"

"No," Gippal said, holding Baralai close to his body. "It's not obvious at all. To everybody, even to me until you told me that, you just seem like a guy who actually cares about things like smelling nice and not being a brash jackass all the time."

"So… but… you don't think it's strange?" Baralai didn't raise his eyes from the ground.

"Of course it's a little strange," Gippal said, nodding slightly. "But so is being a guy who was spontaneously turned into a woman. So is being a warrior with a half-machina body. So is being a half Al Bhed summoner. So is wearing nothing but a thong and a bra on a freezing cold mountain. Even the people who are supposed to be the ideal Spiran have little strange things about them." He sighed against Baralai's cheek. "That's what makes us all human."

"You… don't think any less of me for it?" Baralai lifted his head now, responding to Gippal's repeated nuzzling.

"Of course not," Gippal said softly. "I admire you for it. You're a great man – sorry, you're a great _person_ -- even though you're dealing with this little strangeness. Many people would let that stop them from achieving anything."

Baralai remained silent, simply breathing. He let his head fall back against Gippal's, closing his eyes. "I never thought," he said with a voice barely above a whisper, "that you would be the one to know all of this."

"I'm a woman, too," Gippal teased. "We're observant."

"You still have a lot of work to do," Baralai replied.

"I think I'm kind of hoping you'll help me with that."

Baralai smiled and turned to face Gippal, kissing him as his answer.


	10. Part One Chapter Ten

_Thank you to all my readers. I hope you're enjoying the story. Please leave feedback and let me know what you think; alternatively, send me e-mail. Nothing brightens my day more than seeing a review or an e-mail in my inbox... and believe me, I could seriously use some day brighteners right about now. Also, please excuse the excessive fluffiness that is apparent in some of the chapters... basically, it's there to make the author feel better about life and get a smile. I hope that it does the same for some of the readers. _

_RyRy_

**Chapter Ten**

"Mm, good morning," Gippal said, rolling over as Baralai wrapped his arms around his shoulders.

"Morning," Baralai replied, nuzzling against Gippal's cheek. "Did you sleep well?"

Gippal didn't want to admit that he had spent the entire night holding Baralai against his chest, trying to comfort him, attempting to chase his nightmares away. "Yeah, just fine. You?"

Baralai seemed to not know how to answer that question. "It was okay. Some nightmares… but… they went away."

Yeah, Gippal wanted to say, they went away about an hour and a half ago. He had been awake, holding Baralai and smoothing his hair back for the entire night.

Gippal hadn't really slept much since he had started his period. It was a combination of Baralai fretting in his sleep and the discomfort of having blood pouring out of his vagina that kept Gippal awake.

He also had to go to the bathroom. "Lai, I'm glad, but I have to—"

"I know," Baralai said as he wiped the sleepers out of his eyes. "Go ahead. I'm… not going to get up yet. Too warm."

Gippal smiled at the look on Baralai's face -- it made Gippal want to kiss him… but unfortunately, it hadn't exactly become a commonplace occurrence to kiss Baralai. Yet.

However, Gippal had to go to the bathroom, and so he crawled out of the warmth of the bed (and Baralai) and shuffled to the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom.

Gippal pulled down the dark purple silk pajama pants and the cute dark blue underwear he was wearing. The plastic of the pad in his underwear made a ripping noise as it dislodged itself from his skin, and Gippal had to grimace. He hated that feeling and wished it would be done with, except that any elation he got at the thought that it would be over with soon was snuffed by the fact that it would be back again within a few weeks.

Sighing, he sat down on the toilet. He was still in a haze from the night before, remembering how it felt to hold Baralai and to feel him stop shaking, to feel his breathing change from frenzied to even… it was a good feeling, especially since Gippal knew that it had been due to his efforts that Baralai had finally been able to sleep.

It felt so good that it unnerved him a little. It wasn't supposed to feel this good… but he felt like he knew Baralai so much better after all this. He felt like he understood his old friend in a way he had never understood anybody before.

That, and Baralai was really nice to cuddle with. He had meat on his bones in a way that he hadn't when Gippal had first met him. Gippal remembered Baralai to be little and skinny, like he had been starved to death as a child. But now, the Praetor of New Yevon had some substance in the form of a healthy layer of fat around his bones and his stomach, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders weren't as hard and rough as they had looked before. Baralai had grown softer around the physical edges, and Gippal thought he kind of liked that.

When he was done urinating and musing about his bedmate, Gippal reached for a palmful of toilet paper. He reached down and wiped, then stood up.

Then he realized that he needed to change his pad. Sighing, Gippal sat back down and reached for the supply underneath the bathroom sink. He squeezed his eye closed, hating to look at what was in his underwear, and began to dislodge the pad from its position… a process which was made doubly hard by the fact that it had scrunched up during the night, contorting into a weird sticky thing that seemed like an alien's head in his skivvies.

Unfortunately, he had to open his eye to fold it up and wrap it in toilet paper, or else he would risk getting some of that gross brown-red fluid on his fingers. Gippal steeled himself and blinked his eye open.

The pad was clean and white.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Gippal leapt into the bed, squealing like a girl. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. Well, maybe not the _most_ exciting, but it was really, really, really awesome, in his humble opinion.

Baralai blinked up at him sleepily. "What's going on?"

"It's over!"

"What's over?"

"Everything!"

Baralai blinked and looked down Gippal's body. "You're… still a woman?"

Gippal sighed and tumbled off of Baralai, landing on his side, facing the other. "No! My period's done!"

Baralai closed his eyes and sighed. "That's wonderful, Gippal."

"No, don't you get it?" Gippal grabbed Baralai around the shoulders and hugged him tightly. "I can be a normal person now!"

"Aside from the whole wrong gender thing," Baralai replied, putting his arm around Gippal in response.

"You know, that's even starting to feel normal," Gippal replied, nuzzling Baralai's shoulder. "I… kinda like being a woman."

"You do?"

Gippal smiled. "It allows me to be able to be with you like this."

"Now you're just flattering."

"It's true!"

Baralai sighed and rolled his eyes. "Gippal…"

"You know what this means, though?"

Baralai turned his head back to face Gippal again. "What?"

Gippal smiled and lifted his face close to Baralai's. "This means that you can kiss me without the… messy side effects."

Baralai looked at him in momentary confusion, then laughed. "Is that all you think about?"

"It's hard not to," Gippal replied, nosing Baralai's chin. "You're so close, and it's so nice..."

"You really are turning into a woman."

Gippal smiled. "Does that make you more or less inclined to kiss me?"

Baralai returned the smile, and finally caved into Gippal's wishes.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kissing was a very distracting activity. Gippal really shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as he did… before, he had always been sex sex sex, with no time for cuddling and niceties that the girls had always wanted.

However, his worldview had been changed when he had been practically raped with consent in that dressing room. Now, suddenly, cuddling seemed really important.

And Baralai was a really good cuddler.

"Gippal," Baralai said in a breath between kisses. "I'm not certain we should be… doing this…"

"You don't like it, Lai?" Gippal replied, breaking a kiss for the sole purpose of saying that. It was a waste of breath, he thought.

"I'm just… afraid it'll… go too far," Baralai answered, not resisting when Gippal kissed him between every two words. Their kisses were growing faster and more heated, their tongues and lips moving more quickly with each kiss.

"Why… is that a… problem?" Gippal didn't see any problem with this.

"Gippal…" Baralai pulled his mouth away, looking down and breaking his gaze from Gippal's eyes. "It's… strange… because it's you…"

"Because it's me?" Gippal didn't know whether to be offended or amused.

"You're… you're _Gippal_." Baralai sighed. "I… don't want to go too far with you. I don't want to make a mistake."

There was no such thing as too far to Gippal! And certainly not now, of all times. "But Lai, I don't think there'd be a 'too far', you know?"

Baralai's eyes widened. "You mean… you…?"

Gippal nodded. He figured that saying anything would ruin his chances.

Baralai looked away again. "But I… don't know," he continued.

"You don't know?"

"…what I'm doing."

Gippal was floored. He thought that Baralai had just admitted to being a virgin? He had to check. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Baralai nodded.

"Aww, Lai," Gippal said, wrapping his arms around the other. It was a shock, yes, but it wasn't entirely surprising. Baralai seemed like the type to be scared to touch a woman. "You don't have to be… afraid, or whatever it is that you are, about this."

"Gippal, don't you get it?" Baralai looked him sternly in the eye. "I've never been with a woman before because… I don't think I _like_ women."

Gippal blinked. "But you said… that you liked women before… the first time we kissed." He felt his heart racing in his chest. "Don't you remember…?"

"I know," Baralai replied. "But… well, I wasn't lying, but… I don't know what I like. I don't know who I'm supposed to be with. Inside, I like men but outside I like women and New Yevon wants me to have a wife but I can't even decide who I'd like to have sex with."

A silence descended over the pair in the bed. Gippal didn't know what to say, but he continued to hold Baralai in his arms. Could this be the truth? If Baralai couldn't decide who to have sex with… did that mean that he couldn't have sex? If he wasn't interested in either… that meant that Gippal's rule about alive people having sex… didn't apply.

Gippal couldn't bear to let that be the case. Baralai couldn't be dead, and Gippal had to prove that to him. It was his current mission. Finally, it occurred to him that they were in the same position – the woman inside of Baralai wanted a man, and the man outside of Baralai wanted a woman.

Gippal was both of those things. "Lai," he whispered, lifting his eye to meet Baralai's tentative gaze. "You… do _want_, though, right?"

Baralai bit his lip, nodding slightly. "I do… but I don't know how, or with who, or what…"

Gippal let Baralai's words die in the air, then he pressed forward and upward, pressing his lips to Baralai's gently. Gippal watched as Baralai's eyes closed, and it made Gippal's heart skip to see that Baralai wasn't pulling away.

After a moment, Gippal pulled back. "You like that, right?"

Baralai nodded, his eyes still closed.

"Lai, let's try," Gippal suggested, nuzzling Baralai's nose affectionately. "And if it doesn't work, that's okay. But if it does work, that's okay too."

Baralai opened his eyes, met Gippal's gaze, and watched him for a moment. Gippal's heart raced in his throat and he felt his palms sweating just slightly.

Finally, Baralai nodded, and they kissed again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It didn't feel disgusting. Feeling Baralai inside of him wasn't revolting, and even after it was done and Baralai had left his remnants inside of Gippal, the gut-wrenching stomach pains didn't assault him like they had the first time. Instead, Gippal felt a deep warmth, and knowing that the warmth was brought by Baralai and what Baralai had left inside of him made Gippal's heart flutter. He felt pleased and happy instead of revolted and disgusting.

They lay together in a sweaty mess, and Gippal could see on Baralai's face that he was truly happy. He could see it in the soft smile that graced Baralai's lips and the way he slept so lightly and contentedly, cradling Gippal against his shoulder.

Gippal smiled too, shifting his legs and getting comfortable. He laid his arm across Baralai's chest, pulling himself in closer.

Their bodies locked together like two pieces of a puzzle, and finally, Gippal slept.


	11. Part One Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

Three weeks went by much faster, Gippal noticed, when you had someone to love. In fact, he also noticed that days melted into nights and reformed back into days rather quickly when you hardly left the bed.

Not that he minded. Gippal loved the way life was going for him. He and Baralai left the bed only occasionally, mostly for the purposes of showering when they got too sweaty and, in some instances, to eat. When they woke up, usually at the same time, Baralai would get out of bed and get the morning newspaper and bring it back to the bedroom. Gippal would yawn and stretch lazily until Baralai returned, and then they would lie together in the sunlight that filtered through the window and read about what was going on in Spira while they pleasured each other.

Life seemed to have returned to as normal of a state as it could get, considering the circumstances. People went back to work and went about their business as though nothing had happened at all. To Gippal's surprise, the people were getting over the whole wrong-sex thing very quickly, and he was rather impressed. Politically, New Yevon and the Youth League seemed to run themselves – where things had fallen apart before under the leadership, a change of sex seemed to bring all of the interim leaders to their senses. Isaaru was basically running Bevelle in Baralai's absence – in fact, much to the Praetor's delight, Isaaru had been basically ignoring him – and Lucil had taken over the Youth League. The two of them seemed to have formed a partnership and were working toward "restoring order to Spira".

Gippal was delighted to find out that the Machine Faction hadn't made any headlines, which meant that everything was going as smoothly as it always went. Gippal knew that the Al Bhed could run themselves, and he was thankful for that. He was much happier spending his time with Baralai.

In fact, in the shock of the circumstances, everyone mostly seemed to have forgotten about either him or Baralai. Once in a while someone would come to clean the loft, which seemed odd since Baralai had never before had any sort of housekeeper; but other than that, Gippal was left on his own to help Baralai recover.

He was very happy to admit that Baralai seemed to be doing very well. Where he had once held many uncertainties, Baralai was becoming passionate again. No longer did he toss and turn at night, struggling with nightmares. Gippal delighted in the fact that Baralai seemed much more at ease, and it was probably entirely his doing.

It was another lazy morning. Gippal crawled back into the bed after cleaning himself off from his morning activities with Baralai, rearranging the sheets into some semblance of order. He curled up under the plush white blanket and smiled. Never in his life had he been so lazy, but it felt incredible to be like this.

Baralai padded into the room, completely naked, his dark olive skin contrasting sharply with the white all around him. Gippal watched him, following the graceful motions of his arms as he walked, listening to the soft tapping of bare feet on the hardwood floor. Baralai still walked on his toes, moving with graceful fluidity – he reminded Gippal of a cat.

A very sexy cat.

Baralai dropped the mail and the newspaper at the end of the bed and lay down into Gippal's arms. They kissed, and before Gippal knew it, they were making love again.

When they were done, Gippal laid his head on top of Baralai's chest and spent a few long moments listening to his heartbeat. It was so gentle and soothing, and making love and then lying like this afterwards was something that Gippal never thought he could get tired of.

…but then, there was the unmistakable sound of the doorbell ringing.

Baralai sighed and brushed Gippal's hair back, kissing him on the forehead before standing up. Gippal finally decided to let Baralai get up, and then went back to curling up underneath the blankets.

He watched, smiling, as Baralai pulled on a dark brown robe and went to answer the door. Gippal reached forward and grabbed the newspaper and scanned the headlines as he waited for Baralai to return.

Just as he was reading about Rin's newest endeavor – an airship taxi service – Gippal thought he heard an unmistakable voice.

"Baralai, I really don't want to upset you, but we found this."

"A sphere?"

"Paine and I took it when we were out on the outskirts of Bevelle. We found something that we thought you might want to see."

"What does it contain?"

"You would… have to see it, really."

Their voices faded into mumbling, but Gippal could tell from any distance that that voice belonged to Yuna. He had made fun of her enough to know her when he heard her. He sighed and pulled himself out of bed – again! – and dug around in the drawer he had claimed for his own until he pulled on a loose white shirt he had stolen from Baralai overtop of a pair of his new jeans. He ran his fingers through his hair – it had grown quite long over the past weeks and he had decided to let it go. He was trying to be a girl in every sense of the word, including with the long hair. Once he was satisfied with his appearance, Gippal opened the door and walked out into the living room.

He had been correct – it was Yuna who had decided to pay a visit. She stood in the middle of the living room in a tight green shirt and baggy jeans with a gaudy blue and purple belt, holding her hands daintily on her hips.

Gippal still found it odd to see Yuna without her breasts hanging out of her shirt in some way or another.

"You're here too?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked at Gippal.

"Err, yeah, you could say so," Gippal replied, suddenly wishing that he hadn't left the bedroom.

"We're lovers," Baralai said quite nonchalantly. "Now, what are the contents of that sphere?"

"You're—" Yuna stammered, staring at Gippal. Her jaw dropped.

"Lovers," Gippal replied, allowing the coy smile to show on his mouth. "L-O-V-E-R-S."

"That's enough," Baralai interrupted, stepping forward and taking the sphere that Yuna held in her outstretched, shaking hand. "Let's look at this." He padded over to the sphere reader and inserted the sphere.

The screen faded in to an image of a graveyard. The sun was clearly shining and a soft wind was blowing through a tree in the background.

"Yuna, point the lens at the stone." It was Paine's voice.

"Oh! Of course," Yuna's voice replied.

The image on the screen shifted away from the sky, now showing the ground. The grass was green and flattened in several places, and the tips of the blades were growing brown from the heat. The image faded and focused in on a single gravestone.

**Here lies Baralai, a sweet son who never had the chance to be.  
****He died before his time, now his life will be spent in the heaven of the Farplane.  
****His wings will be the whitest of all. **

The image on the screen turned to static, then fizzled to black. Baralai was staring wide-eyed at the blank screen, and immediately Gippal moved to his side, taking him gently by the wrist.

This was too much. Those spheres in Baralai's apartment, and now this gravestone? Gippal didn't know what there was to do about the situation; he was mad now, because he had spent the last three weeks productively bringing Baralai back to sanity, and now this gravestone had to just show up and ruin everything.

"Lai," Gippal whispered as gently as he could.

"I just… thought you should know," Yuna said, her voice shaking. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Baralai said suddenly, his voice flat. "Just… a little unnerving."

Gippal blinked. "Lai?"

Baralai nodded to him. "Thank you, Yuna, for showing me this. It's always intriguing to find those who you share a name with."

Gippal didn't know what was going on. He watched Baralai stride forward and take the sphere from the reader and hand it back to Yuna. "Come," he said, motioning also to Gippal. "Let us sit and talk of other things. Yuna, have you heard anything of the Farplane?"

xxxxxxxxxx

"Is that all you think it is?" Gippal asked Baralai the moment Yuna had left. "Someone with the same name as you?"

Baralai shrugged gently. "What else could it be? I'm certainly still alive, as you can attest to."

Part of Gippal was really glad that Baralai was over all of his angst, but another part of him thought that there was something rather strange about everything that had happened since the defeat of Vegnagun. Something was seriously wrong with Baralai's situation, with the spheres that they had found, and with that gravestone. Suddenly, being the wrong sex didn't seem like very much of a problem anymore.


	12. Part One Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

"Gippal," Baralai said, rolling over in bed. "I want to leave the apartment today."

The very thought was offensive to Gippal's ears. "What?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows. "Why would you want to do a thing like that?"

"I want to go to that graveyard," Baralai replied with an even tone. "I have to… see something."

Gippal tried not to frown in worry, but this was difficult to accomplish when Baralai was considering going to see his dead fetus self. "Do you want me to go with you?"

Baralai seemed to consider the idea for a moment, then nodded. "I would like it if you went," Baralai informed him. "This might be difficult."

Nodding, Gippal embraced Baralai around the midsection. "I'll be right there to make sure it turns out okay."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Just as they were about to leave, a messenger came running down the hallway. She was waving a glowing sphere. "The Farplane has exploded open in Guadosalam!"

Gippal's stare met Baralai's. "Nooj," they said simultaneously.

"This is more important than the graveyard," Baralai asserted, turning back into his apartment and grabbing his bo by the door. "Are you ready to go to the Farplane?"

Gippal was certainly ready, but he just wished he'd had more time to prepare. Laying around in bed for several days did not make him physically fit, or aware, enough to do any sort of adventuring into the Farplane. Regardless, he reached into Baralai's closet and grabbed the knives that he had stored on the top shelf. Hooking them onto his belt, Gippal left the apartment for the second time. "Ready," he said, nodding to Baralai.

"Let's take Rin's airship," Baralai said, leading Gippal down the hallway. "We need to get there fast, before it closes again."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The opening of the Farplane was the weirdest thing Gippal had ever seen, including pyreflies shooting out of Nooj's body and possessing Baralai. That was pretty weird, he had to admit, but this was weirder.

It was like watching the heat waves rise up off the sands of the desert -- except that where the air wavered, different scenery stood behind it. The sky was a different color and a path led off down into the darkness. It was strikingly like the time he and Nooj had followed Baralai into the Farplane when Shuyin—

No. No use thinking about that. Gippal stared at the explosion in the fabric of space, looking at the wavering image of the Farplane paths shimmering in and out of existence in front of him. It was like someone had painted a very realistic portrait, cut the canvas into strips, and was waving them in random directions.

It almost made him nauseous.

"Come on, before it closes," Baralai said, taking Gippal by the hand and pulling him forward.

Suddenly, Gippal felt an extreme revulsion from somewhere inside his body. An energy pulsed through his veins, striking many distinct emotions in him – among them was a fear of the Farplane because of what he had gone through the last time he had been there. Another emotion was a very strong sense of protectiveness. He wasn't entirely certain what he was supposed to be protecting – Baralai? But Baralai, clearly, could take care of himself.

However, Gippal had grown very fond of Baralai in the past weeks. They had been together for almost a month, and Gippal had gotten attached. Of course he wanted to protect Baralai. It only made sense.

Biting back the revulsion, Gippal followed Baralai toward the opening of the Farplane. Even as he felt himself about to retch, he stepped forward into the shimmering glow of the other world… and felt himself step out onto the hard stone path of the Farplane.

He sighed and looked at Baralai, noticing that the other's hand was shaking a little. "You okay, Lai?"

"Shuyin," Baralai murmured. "The last time I—"

"Yeah, but this time, we're here for Nooj, not Shuyin. Yeah?" Gippal patted Baralai on the cheek, protecting him from the terrible memories inside. "Let's find out what's behind this mystery."

Baralai's eyes met Gippal's gaze for a long moment. "Thank you for coming," Baralai said in a low voice.

Gippal smiled. "No problem. This place is neat anyway." He looked up at the dense blackness that surrounded them on the stone path. "Let's go."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They encountered Nooj on the second large intersection of pathways on the descent downward into the Farplane Glen.

"How did you two get here?" Nooj asked, startling the couple as he approached.

Gippal turned and was the first to speak. "What do you _mean_ 'how did we get here'? You opened the Farplane for us, remember?"

Nooj stared blankly at Gippal. It was then that Gippal realized that the other man was entirely whole again – his body was without machina – and he was male again.

"You mean," Baralai said, interrupting the staring contest, "that the opening in Guadosalam wasn't you?"

"No," Nooj replied, shaking his head and folding his arms. "But there is something strange going on down here. Why are you still a woman, Gippal?" Nooj seemed a little confused. "Change yourself back to normal – or have you become comfortable in your situation?"

Gippal hated it when Nooj asked questions like that. "I don't know how to change myself," he retorted quickly, "and, for your information, I'm not dead, so I probably can't."

"It doesn't matter," Baralai interrupted again. "Nooj, tell us, what is happening here?"

Nooj looked out at the expanse of blackness surrounding them. "There are levels," he informed the others. "Different… planes. It's difficult to describe." He paused and walked closer to the edge of the ledge. "Depending on where you wander to, what part of the Farplane Glen you jump off of, which of these paths you follow, you can view different worlds."

Gippal narrowed his eye. Did people lose their brains when they died, or what? "Different worlds," he repeated, hoping to get Nooj to elaborate in the silence.

"Yes," Nooj replied, turning to look at Gippal over his shoulder. "Different worlds. However, they are not all different. In fact, they all share the same horrible similarities."

"Wait," Baralai said, stepping forward. "Are you saying there are different… worlds… planets… out there?"

Nooj shook his head. "No," he replied, looking at Baralai sternly. "I am saying that it is possible to see a seemingly infinite amount of _variations_ on the same world."

Gippal's heart leapt into his chest.

"Variations?" Baralai ventured.

Nooj nodded gravely. "The same people – I recognize them. The first one I saw was that Summoner friend of yours," he looked at Baralai, "Isaaru. I saw him as he appeared in Bevelle when I last saw you two. And I left the viewing point of the world – the place where the Farplane and the world connect and you can view different openings of the Farplane into the world like screens on the Commspheres – and went deeper within the Farplane. At another viewpoint, I happened to look in and see the same man – yes, he was a man – however, in a society of people who lived in trees instead of on the ground. Leaving that point, I went deeper, to another point – to see what I thought was you, Gippal, with two eyes and a set of wings. The more I traveled, the more of these different variations I saw."

A silence settled itself over the three men. Gippal and Baralai stared at Nooj like he was trying to fool them into falling for some gigantic practical joke. That's how Gippal felt – like Nooj was about to say 'just kidding' or something.

But Nooj didn't do things like that. Nooj wouldn't _make up_ a story.

"So…" Baralai murmured, finally breaking the silence. "There are… more… people like us out there?"

"It seems to me," Nooj said, an amused smile on his face, "that there aren't more people _like_ you out there… in fact, it seems more like there are many different versions of _you_ existing in different places at the same time."

"Different… universes," Gippal said slowly, not believing what he was hearing. It sounded like something out of crazy fictional tales that some people were known to tell. "Like… we crossed dimensions, or something."

"Exactly," Nooj replied. "Allow me to show you something most peculiar."

Not having any choice, Gippal took Baralai by the hand and followed Nooj deeper into the Farplane.


	13. Part One Chapter Thirteen

_Author's Note: I know, I've been off for a long time. My apologies. I hope some may still find this story enjoyable. Now that I don't have to do 80 pages of academic writing a month, maybe some time will be made for more fun things. –RyRy_

**Chapter Thirteen**

The place was absolutely devastated. The earth was grassless, dead and dry. There were no trees and no plants, and no animals or even fiends wandered the ground. Twisted, contorted metal structures littered the landscape, glinting in the harsh sunlight. A dry riverbed indicated that at one time, there had been water in this place.

Gippal couldn't keep his eyes off of the scene in front of him. "What _is_ this place?" he asked, peering through the viewpoint.

"Don't get too close," Nooj warned, putting his hand on Gippal's shoulder to pull him back. "That is Spira."

A moan came from Baralai's direction, but Gippal wasn't ready to believe what he was hearing. "_Spira_?"

"Yes," Nooj replied, turning and taking several steps back from the viewpoint. "Bevelle, I believe."

"Wait, wait," Gippal said, holding his hands up. "But _we're_ from Spira. We were just _there_. What do you mean… did something come and destroy it in the few hours we've been gone?"

Nooj shook his head. "Gippal, I thought you could understand this better," he said, turning around to face the other two. "The Spira you've been in for the past several… however long it's been, it is quite difficult to keep track of time here… that Spira isn't the Spira we are all familiar with. That one that you and Baralai have been _pleasuring_ yourselves in is an Alt-Spira."

"Alt-Spira," Baralai whispered as a question. "An… alternate version?"

"Precisely," Nooj replied. "From what I've been able to see – which hasn't been much – there's something out there that's destroying all of the alternate worlds one by one. It is hell-bent on destroying life as we know it."

"But if it got to Spira," Gippal said after he had swallowed his initial revulsion, "How are we here?"

"I haven't quite figured that out yet," Nooj replied. "I think I know what the thing is, however, that is doing this to the worlds."

"Vegnagun," Baralai said very simply.

Nooj turned his head to look at the Praetor. "Indeed," he said slowly. "You know more than you let on, Baralai."

"I know many of the secrets of Vegnagun," Baralai replied in a cryptic tone that made Gippal nervous.

"But… it destroyed Spira!" Gippal protested, wondering how the other two could have possibly just ignored that. "And we destroyed it!"

"No," Nooj replied. "We destroyed a version of it."

"You mean there are many Vegnaguns?"

"No," Baralai interrupted. "There is only one."

"Then--?" Gippal was confused.

"It moves from place to place," Baralai said slowly. "It was first contained just before I was born. The Warrior Monks of Bevelle – practiced at dealing with Sin – thought that Vegnagun was an incarnation of Sin. They thought that by sealing it forever, it would be a key to stopping Sin."

"But I thought that Vegnagun was built by Bevelle back in the Machina War…" Gippal murmured.

"It was," Nooj said, stepping back onto the Farplane road. "However, that time is still existing now, and you can get there through the paths."

"But… it was…" Gippal had a headache. "It happened a thousand years ago. How can it still be existing?"

Nooj regarded Gippal steadily. "A peculiarity of these different worlds. Time doesn't seem to mean anything either."

"Then, perhaps, that was where Lady Yuna's guardian was from," Baralai added extraneously. "The dream of the Fayth, the Zanarkand that they dreamed of – we have all heard that story in Bevelle." He paused, turning and looking back at the destroyed Spira. "Perhaps it wasn't a dream of the Fayth after all. Perhaps it was just another one of these worlds that you speak of, Nooj."

"Plausible," Nooj replied. "Come. I will show you where Vegnagun has gone."

"I… thought it was destroyed?" Gippal repeated.

"Vegnagun is a tricky machina," Baralai said as he followed Nooj down the connecting pathways. "Perhaps it left a copy of itself."

"A _copy?_" Gippal hadn't really wanted to think of fighting that machine again. It had been one of the most difficult things he had ever done.

Baralai nodded. "There are records of it doing that before. Since it had been dormant, however, it couldn't do anything." He looked back at Gippal. "If anything, the Maesters of Yevon were very good at what they did."

"Hadn't it been inactive for a thousand years?" Gippal wished he could have the opportunity to stop asking questions.

Baralai sighed. "No." He looked away, then slowed his pace of walking to be next to Gippal. They still followed Nooj, but together. "It was just something that Yevon said about Vegnagun… it didn't mean it was true. Another lie supposedly to protect Spira, and it did for the most part."

"Then it has been terrorizing--?"

"Listen," Baralai said softly. "I never understood exactly what it was doing – nobody did! – but twenty-two years ago, a couple of months before my birth, the Warrior Monks set a trap for it underneath Bevelle's temple. They rigged up the Via Infinito, put fiends and Sinspawn there to attract it. They thought it was some agent of Sin, you see, and by trapping it they could control Sin, and therefore control all of Spira." Baralai sighed. "My father was one of the men in charge of its capture. My mother – the white mage I told you about – had helped set the traps for it with some powerful high-level white magic. I don't even know what the spells were that she used because… I was never powerful enough to learn them."

Gippal thought he was starting to get it. "So, they made up that story about it being housed there for a thousand years… just because they didn't want to admit that they had been trying to control Spira with Sin?"

Baralai nodded. "Exactly. But the thousand year thing wasn't exactly untrue. Once we found it and discovered what it was, we researched and discovered spheres of it, with evidence that it from over a thousand years prior. We assumed the place had been Bevelle, because it looked like Bevelle." He looked ahead to Nooj. "But maybe… it was the other world that Nooj was speaking of."

Gippal was, at least, on the very edge of everything making sense. He just needed to take a few more steps, he figured. Maybe whatever Nooj was going to show them would help him figure it all out.

"Nooj," Baralai said, his soft voice carrying across the abyss. "What world has it gone to? Has it destroyed anything since Spira?"

"It has not destroyed," Nooj replied, continuing to walk ahead of them at a somewhat quick pace that the other two weren't used to. "Our Spira was its last target, and it did a thorough job of the destruction. I think that now, however, it faces a much more difficult task."

"What _is_ Vegnagun, anyway?" Gippal asked. "I mean, I know it's a machine, but… how can it do all this?"

"It's a sentient machina," Baralai explained. "It is a machina that has gained human-like qualities. It has the ability to think and to use just as any living being does. That was the mistake of those who built it – they created a machina that was too powerful, and it now threatens the very existence of not only those who built it, but all other humans as well."

Gippal felt a tightening in his stomach. "Artificial intelligence," he whispered. "It's… been a dream of the Al Bhed for a long time. We always worried about its implications, however… so we've never wholly pursued it. We have come close, however, with things like the sentry machina that Rin uses on the Highroad."

Baralai bit his lower lip as he looked at Gippal. "You _know_ about this sort of thing?"

"Well, _now_ I do," Gippal replied a little shortly. "I never imagined that something like Vegnagun could ever be created."

"As far as I, and the other inhabitants here, can see," Nooj added, "Vegnagun is quite irritated with humanity, and is trying to destroy it to make way for more sentient machines."

"It's destroying human worlds," Gippal said, making the final connection. "Vegnagun is destroying anything that's not machina-dominated."

"That's why Spira could hold it for so long!" Baralai said, raising his hand in a gesture of revelation. "Because our world was so anti-machina… it had a hard time taking hold…"

"And when, even after the destruction of Sin, people still mostly refused the machina, Vegnagun decided it wasn't worth the bother, and destroyed the world," Nooj finished.

"But then why are we still here?" Gippal wondered at last. "Shouldn't we have been destroyed with it?"

"We were all in the Farplane when Vegnagun struck," Baralai murmured, "And when we went back, we came back to the closest world to our own."

"But the others," Gippal said quickly. "Isaaru, all the people of the world… what about them? They were all destroyed too. And shouldn't there be copies of ourselves, then?"

"They are copies of the ones you knew – and you are the copy of yourselves," Nooj informed Gippal. "It wasn't your body that came back from the Farplane – I believe it is impossible for any two of the same person to exist in the same world – but when you came through, you merged with your other self. This is why you have your own mind, but the other body."

"This is _nuts_," Gippal said. "Crazy. I can't believe this is happening."

"It is," Nooj said flatly. "And Vegnagun still needs to be stopped. It is methodically going from world to world in a pattern that no one has figured out yet. It may have some greater agenda." He stepped off onto a platform next to the path where there was a viewpoint. The air shimmered in front of their eyes, revealing a wavering image of another world.

Gippal stepped up next to Nooj and looked at the world that Vegnagun was currently terrorizing. He squinted his eye, trying to get used to the image waving in front of him like a banner in a light wind.

A city of stone stood before him, built into the side of a mountain. What he was looking at was much different from anything he had ever seen before, with the exception of the Ronso settlements on Gagazet. There were massive fountains and rivers running through the land. Trees rose up from the ground everywhere, and the city and its buildings seemed to be as natural of a part of the mountain as the boulders and craggy cliffs. Gippal blinked and remembered to breathe—

--and then, a winged creature flew in front of the image.

He jumped. Gippal hated being startled, but that was a worthy cause.

"Those are the inhabitants of this world," Nooj explained. "I have been watching them. These are the people I spoke of, Gippal, when I said I saw a version of you with two eyes and a set of wings."

"There's a me here?" Gippal wondered in awe as another winged person flew by. They were just like normal humans, except with huge bird wings. Now that he looked more closely, he could see them flying in the stone city. The wings seemed to be all sorts of colors – brown and gray like bird wings, some white, some bright colors. "With two eyes?"

"This is a very different world from either that you have experienced," Nooj said. "Things don't happen here in the same way that you're used to. This is the sort of contrast that there can be."

"Vegnagun is here?" Baralai said. "Are they going to be able to stop it?"

Nooj shook his head gravely. "I don't think they even know," he replied.

Baralai took a step forward toward the image of the other world. "We have to help them!"

"No," Nooj said, grabbing Baralai by the arm. "Don't you understand? If you go through that viewpoint, you will lose everything that you have here. You will never be able to go back." At Baralai's inquiring stare, Nooj continued, "You will lose who you are. Your mind and body will merge with the version of you here, and you might forget what you were doing here. You can't just rush off to help when you don't even know if you'll remember what you're helping."

"But why do I remember who I am now?" Baralai sputtered, wrenching himself out of Nooj's grasp.

"Because your world, Spira, and the new world, Alt-Spira, are so close that the two versions of you were probably exactly the same in everything but gender." Nooj let his hand fall back to his side.

"Doesn't that make a huge difference though?" Gippal asked.

Nooj just shrugged. "I have a theory that people will act the same way no matter what set of genitals they're born with." He looked at Baralai. "It's the roles that are different. In Alt-Spira, the women have the jobs that the men of Spira do."

"So I can't go in there," Baralai said, and Gippal noted that he was still staring off into the strange world in the portal before them.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Gippal said, looking back at the viewpoint as he followed Baralai's gaze. "Just sit here and watch these beautiful people and this beautiful world get destroyed?"

"We can't fight it head-on," Nooj answered as patiently as Gippal had ever heard him be. "We already tried that, remember? It destroyed Spira and then threw us all into the other world. It's more powerful than we know." He folded his arms and looked away. "We have to set a trap for it."

"A trap," Gippal replied, frowning. "A trap. How are we supposed to trap that thing?"

"The same way the Maesters of Yevon did," Baralai said. "The exact same way. We need to find out how they did it."

Nooj nodded. "Good thing someone's thinking the situation through," he said, starting to walk back toward the road in the Farplane. "You two need to go back to your world – your second world, the Alt-Spira, and find the records while they still exist. I assume the originals have been destroyed in Spira itself, but perhaps in the world closest to it, versions of them still exist. Those need to be found, and this trap needs to be set."

"And Vegnagun needs to finally be destroyed," Baralai added. "Somehow."

Gippal sighed. He thought this mess was over when Yuna, Rikku, and Paine had finally defeated Vegnagun in the Farplane the first time. Clearly, that hadn't been the case… now, it was up to the three of them to do it again – the right way, this time.


	14. Part One Chapter Fourteen

_Author's Note: It has come to my attention that many long-time readers of this fic may have forgotten what has happened so far. In the interest of reminding you all what's going on so you don't have to go back and read my words again and go "Oh yeah, skip to the next chapter" thirteen times, here's a plot summary in 238 words. (Those who have followed this will understand that this is quite a feat.) After the plot summary, we will continue with Chapter Fourteen. _

**Plot Summary**

After the defeat of Vegnagun, everyone in Spira's gender was spontaneously reversed -- men became women, women became men -- except for Baralai. Everyone assumed that this phenomenon was because of some lasting effect of Vegnagun, but through the discovery of several spheres from Baralai's past, it became clear that this was not the case. In order to get to the bottom of things, Nooj finally found death and has been roaming the Farplane looking for answers -- and discovered that Spira had been destroyed in its entirety. The world that everyone now lived in was, in fact, a parallel dimension where the only difference was everyone's gender. Baralai was exempt from this because, in this new Alt-Spira, he had died in his mother's womb. This, too, was an effect of Vegnagun -- Baralai's parents had bred him to be an extraordinary white mage, the one who would finally be able to destroy Vegnagun -- and so, when Vegnagun left Alt-Spira and went to Spira (the one we all experienced in the games), Baralai followed it. Now, in order to stop Vegnagun once and for all, Baralai is searching for the key, the thing he had been born to do -- and this is where we are in the story. Oh yes, and by the way, a side story is Gippal's process of dealing with his new femininity and current love affair with the world's savior himself, Baralai.

**Chapter Fourteen**

The investigation of the Vegnagun Documents was taking too long. There were too many little inconsistencies, too many things that were slightly off, and far too many things that drove Baralai crazy.

"All the records are slightly off, concealed with passwords that are just a few numbers different, records are a little odd and I always forget that people are the wrong sex, and everything's all _wrong_," Baralai muttered as he paced around the living room.

"Just calm down," Gippal tried to say helpfully, "you didn't expect this to be easy, did you?"

Baralai sighed and flopped down on the couch, his loose brown pants settling around him as he sunk into the cushions. "All that I can seem to find out is that my mother – no, my father, I guess, in this world – knew some sort of white magic spell that really sealed Vegnagun in. My father couldn't cast it strong enough to kill it, but he did cast it strong enough to capture it… and he kept studying, kept records of his research, trying to find a stronger spell to finally kill it. Finally…"

Gippal laid his head on Baralai's shoulder, trying to comfort him as he faltered in his explanation. "What did you find in the records?"

Baralai sighed and closed his eyes. "It says that my father decided to try to pass on his white magic abilities to a child – a son. There are all these records of him searching the world for a mother, for a wife, for someone who would create a more powerful mage with his contribution." He sighed. "There are spheres, of a celebration of pregnancy, of a boy who was supposed to be the one to destroy Vegnagun. There are even these notes of exposure directly to the machina, a synchronization of vibrations, in order to somehow make the child more in-tune with that which he was bred to kill."

Gippal was starting to see the connections. Baralai's parents conceiving someone who was supposed to kill Vegnagun… but then Vegnagun had escaped… and…

"Then, a few months before the birth of the baby, Vegnagun escaped," Baralai said, reading Gippal's mind. "And then, the baby died. The baby boy. Baralai. _Me_."

"But you didn't die," Gippal said, resting his hand on Baralai's chest. "You're here, aren't you?"

"Completely ineffective," Baralai answered, his voice low. "I'm no white mage. I don't know any magic that could kill that machine." He clenched his tawny fists. "I'm the one who allowed it to be operated – those were my hands that started it again!"

"Stop it!" Gippal intoned. "Just stop it. That's not the way it is, and you know it!"

"But I can't do anything to stop it. I can't do anything that I was supposedly born for in this alternate world."

"That's because you were living in the other world," Gippal said, grabbing a hold of Baralai's shirt for effect. "You lived there and you were automatically thought to be a failure just because of your sex. You were thought to be a girl, but then the very fact that you have a _penis_ was a disappointment—"

"It still doesn't change that I couldn't learn white magic, that I am essentially powerless," Baralai replied, running his hand distractedly through his hair.

"But you could _still_ learn the magic, couldn't you?" Gippal tried to sound hopeful. "There's still time, especially since you're here – maybe these people know something that people in Spira don't."

"Everybody who knows anything is dead," Baralai replied. "My parents, who are the only ones who can effectively teach white magic to children, are gone."

"Maybe you can still do something, though," Gippal said. "You can still try. You have to, if it's still out there, and if you're the child of this powerful white mage who captured it the first time, right?"

Baralai was silent for a long moment. "Right," he finally said, turning and looking at Gippal in the eye. "I suppose there's nothing else I can do. I have to study and learn what I can…"

Gippal grinned and kissed Baralai fully on the lips. "I knew you'd come to your senses," he said, nuzzling Baralai's cheek before placing his head back on Baralai's shoulder.

"I don't know if it will work," Baralai replied, sighing and laying his head against Gippal's. "But I can certainly try."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After a few weeks, Gippal started to get worried. In his search for the key to defeating Vegnagun, Baralai had been out at all hours, seeking the white mages of the world, studying magic of all types. It had been a little over a month, and Baralai's studies grew more and more intense as each day went by.

However, Gippal had gotten sick a few days after Baralai set off on his quest to learn white magic. Every morning, Gippal had to crawl out of bed -- lost in a nauseous haze -- and throw up in the nearest toilet or garbage can. He also started to get incredibly sickened by the smell of salt and some oils, and those too made him vomit continuously for half an hour or more. He didn't understand why he was suddenly getting sick again, but he thought that maybe it was something like what Baralai experienced when they first got thrown into this alternate world. Or, he thought, maybe it was a lingering effect of that sick feeling he had gotten when he had first gone into the Farplane to find Nooj.

The more he thought about Baralai, the more he was astounded by the man and his circumstances. Suddenly everything really made sense – Baralai, the male, had been conceived in this world, Alt-Spira, but since he had been exposed to Vegnagun at such an early age… Gippal figured that Baralai had followed the thing he had been born to kill.

That's why it made sense that the sex of the baby in Spira had been wrong, like it had been changed at the last moment. It was Vegnagun's fault. Baralai and Vegnagun were intrinsically linked, which both thrilled and frightened Gippal.

It was even more of an ironic tragedy now that Baralai's hands were the ones to operate it toward the destruction of Spira. No wonder Vegnagun had allowed Shuyin in Baralai's body to get close and operate the machina – because Baralai and Vegnagun were familiar with each other. Their fates were connected.

Gippal heaved and vomited again. He wasn't certain which was better – vomiting every morning for the past two weeks, or still not being on his period. He hated being on his period, and he counted himself lucky that he had only experienced one of them in almost three months being a woman. But if the price he had to pay was this constant vomiting -- not to mention the weight he was gaining! – he wasn't sure he wanted one or the other. Couldn't he just go back to being male?

He heard the door click close, and he pulled himself up from his usual position over the toilet, intending to try to make himself look healthy for Baralai. Lai didn't need to be worrying about him on top of trying to learn white magic to save the world, and Gippal knew that. He closed the door to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, needing to rid himself of the taste in his mouth and what he might have smelled like. The toothpaste wasn't much better – the smell of it stung his nostrils, as though it was incredibly acidic. He wondered if it had gone bad, and subsequently wondered if toothpaste _could _go bad.

"Gippal?"

"Lai!" Gippal was so happy to hear his voice – he had been away for nearly a week, visiting with a white mage across the world. He just wished Baralai hadn't come home in the middle of one of his vomiting spells.

"You okay?"

"Just brushing my teeth," Gippal said, then spat the toothpaste in the sink. "Be out in a second!"

When Gippal came out of the bathroom, Baralai was reclined on the white couch, dressed in a long white and beige robe. Gippal went around behind the couch and embraced Baralai from behind affectionately. "How was your trip?" he asked.

"It was most enlightening," Baralai replied with a smile. "I've learned the secret behind the Life spells… I can do them now, most of the time, but the more I work, the more consistent I will be." He paused, looking up at Gippal. "Gippal, you don't look like you're feeling very well – have you still been sick?"

Gippal felt a stirring in his stomach. Baralai was already worried about him, and he didn't even do anything. "Yeah, but I'm sure it'll go away soon, I mean, it's probably just getting used to the body, right?"

Baralai blinked and set his lips in a straight line. "I'm worried about you, Gippal," he said, turning to face him. "Have you had your period yet?"

Gippal looked away. "No."

Baralai bit his lower lip when Gippal looked back at him. "Have you been… really scent-sensitive?"

Gippal didn't like the way that question sounded. "Yes… to salty things, mostly, but then there was that toothpaste, I think it's gone rotten—"

"Gained a bit of weight at all?" Baralai's eyes lifted to meet Gippal's gaze as he ignored Gippal's objections. "Your breasts, are they sensitive?"

"Yeah, but I've been eating a little more, and then, you know, I thought it was because you haven't been here and I miss you," Gippal stammered. He didn't like how this sounded. But… well, maybe Baralai knew what was going on, and knew of a way to fix it.

"Gippal," Baralai said, sitting up and taking Gippal's hands gently. "I… think I know what's wrong."

Gippal nodded. "What is it, Lai? I really just want to feel better… for this to all be okay again, you know?"

Lai bowed his head. "I know," he said, then he looked up again and smiled. "Gippal… from what you've told me… you missed your period, for a long time, right?"

Gippal nodded.

"You know what that usually means, right?"

Gippal shook his head.

Baralai smiled infectiously, his eyes glinting with excitement. "Gippal," he said, his voice nearly a whisper. "I think… you're pregnant."


	15. Part One Chapter Fifteen

_Author's Note: Every fic has to have its obligatory fluffy chapter, right? If you're not into fluff, you can probably skip this one. I'll freely admit it – nothing really happens, but it certainly was fun to write. -RyRy_

**Chapter Fifteen**

"Gippal, have you eaten today?"

Gippal lay back on the couch, resting his hands on his slightly swollen stomach. Either he had been eating too much, or… well, no. He wasn't ready to think about that. "Twice," he replied sleepily. "You woke me up, Lai."

"Oh," Baralai said, his voice immediately going to a whisper. "Sorry."

"I'm already up," Gippal muttered, closing his eye and turning his head to get comfortable on the pillow again. "Going quiet now won't help anything."

"I'm sorry I woke you," Baralai said, dropping a knapsack on the counter in the kitchen before walking into the living room. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Don't be sorry," Gippal said, stretching and yawning. "I'm glad you're finally home. I'd get up off the couch to greet you, but it's too comfortable."

Baralai leaned over the back of the couch and looked down at Gippal. "I see how it is. I've been gone for how many weeks, and you--?" He lifted his eyebrows. "—your hair is longer now."

Gippal grinned. "Lai," he said, reaching up a hand to touch the soft, tawny cheek of his lover. "You said you wondered what it would look like." Even though Gippal hated having his hair in his face, Baralai had made it very clear that he was interested in the idea of Gippal with long hair. Even though it was an annoyance, in Gippal's estimation, having to hold it back in a hairband was well worth the attention he would get from Baralai for it.

His plan was working. "Have you looked at yourself?" Baralai asked fondly.

Gippal held his grin. "Do you think I could resist?"

"Not for a moment." Baralai finally maneuvered himself to the other side of the couch and sat down next to Gippal. "Would you kick me if I told you that you looked gorgeous?"

"Probably," Gippal replied quickly. "But not if you said it nicely."

"I think it'd look better if you parted it on one side instead of down the middle," Baralai pointed out. "It would probably also cover the eyepatch strap better."

"What are you, a hair stylist?"

"No… are you going to kick me now?"

"Maybe," Gippal said, putting his legs over Baralai's lap. "Unless you tell me more nice things about myself."

"More nice things?" Baralai put his hands over Gippal's knees. "Well, your eye is very lovely, and I didn't think your hair would be such a platinum color; I always thought it was darker."

"Is that a nice thing?"

"It matches your eye very nicely."

Gippal smiled. "Yes, and what about my womanly figure?"

"It's very nice?" Baralai tried.

"I have _hips_, Lai," Gippal informed him. "Hips."

"It's hard to notice them with all the free-flowing clothing you've been wearing lately." Baralai put his hand on Gippal's left hip. "But you do have nice hips. A real hourglass form."

"I only wear loose pants." Gippal sat up, as if to show Baralai the nice tight fluorescent purple shirt he was wearing. "If I've got a rack, I want to show it off."

"I like your hair better," Baralai said. "It looks nice how it is, just past your ears, with the ends sticking off in all directions. I can't believe it's grown that long already."

"I think you need to pay more attention," Gippal said. "To me, and not to your magic, that is." As he put his hand over top of Baralai's hand that was resting on his knee, suddenly Gippal felt a stab of guilt for not asking how Baralai's search was going. "So how's your big important world-saving quest going?"

"Oh, just fine," Baralai said as he put his free hand over Gippal's. "How are you doing?"

Gippal sighed. "Alright," he said, twining his hand around Baralai's. Gently, he tugged on Baralai's wrist, guiding his hand to rest on his stomach. "Feel."

"Feel?" Baralai echoed. His fingers twitched slightly on Gippal's stomach. He looked downward, his hand roaming across Gippal's navel. "Feel…" His eyes lit up. "You're showing!"

Gippal smiled. "Yeah," he said, almost shyly. He watched as Baralai's hands traveled over his stomach, fingers seeking more of the subtle changes in Gippal's form. Over the past week, he had watched the little swell in his stomach with a mixture of curiosity and horror – he felt like he was gaining weight or getting water-fat, but it was neither of those things. It was a baby, a child growing inside of him; Gippal's feelings toward it vacillated between a natural distrust of a parasitic organism and a growing excitement about spawning life. "I… can't believe it," he said simply, feeling as though he grossly understated his emotions.

"Me either," Baralai murmured, untangling himself from Gippal's legs and kneeling on the floor next to him. "I… this is…" His whispers faded into his grin.

"Our baby, Lai?" Gippal suggested.

Baralai's grin grew wider, and he laid his ear delicately on Gippal's stomach. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Gippal replied, putting a hand in Baralai's hair. "Does it hold up a sign or something?"

Baralai chuckled. "I… don't know. Sometimes people just have feelings."

"How do you know all these things?" Gippal's fingers ran through Baralai's shock white hair.

"I always tried to figure out what went wrong, why my mother thought I was female," Baralai replied, not moving his head from its position on Gippal's stomach. "Of course, that was before I knew what was going on here. I thought it was some strange thing that happened during the pregnancy, so I investigated. I asked questions." He turned his head just slightly and smiled up at Gippal. "I wanted to know how it was that she thought I was a girl. I looked at every aspect of pregnancy, trying to answer that and, eventually, my question of why I felt that… inside of me, I felt female."

Gippal smiled as he ran his fingertips along Baralai's jaw line. "So that's why you knew so much about me being pregnant."

"Mm," Baralai replied, closing his eyes and nodding slightly. "I never thought it would be so useful."

"Did you ever get any answers?"

Baralai blinked his eyes. "About?"

"You… being a woman, inside," Gippal replied, trying not to feel strange saying that.

Baralai shrugged gently. "I mostly figured it was just that my parents talked to me, in the womb, like I was a girl. You know, babies can hear their mother's voice when they're in there." He gently ran his fingers over Gippal's stomach. "I probably heard my mother saying 'she she she', and that made all the difference."

Gippal bit his lower lip. "I wish I could know what… is in there, so everything could be okay."

"It'll be okay," he assured Gippal gently before turning his lips to Gippal's stomach. "Hello," he whispered, his lips moving against Gippal's naval. "Can you hear me?" He closed his eyes and smiled. "I know you can." His eyes shifted and opened, meeting Gippal's gaze. "I'm your father, little one. I'm your father, and I love you."

"Lai," Gippal whispered, his voice choking in his throat. Lai was… the baby's father. Baralai. The little Yevon priestling who could hardly shoot a gun when Gippal met him. This man, this beautiful, delicate man… was the father of his child.

His child.

Gippal's child.

Baralai's child.

"I love you," Baralai repeated, a smile on his lips as his shoulders untensed. "I love you and I'll always be here for you."

"I love you too," Gippal replied… and he realized that he wasn't talking only to the baby in his womb.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Baralai," Gippal murmured between motions and heavy, rasping breaths. "Is it really okay to be doing this… during…"

"The baby… will appreciate knowing… we love each other," Baralai replied, and then any coherent words he said were lost in his exclamations of ecstasy.

Gippal didn't lose it, though. He didn't forget. The ecstasy didn't erase Baralai's inadvertent admission. Their togetherness was even sweeter after having heard what Baralai had said, and Gippal found himself lost in even more of an elated haze than usual during the completion of the act.

Baralai gently eased himself off of Gippal after a long moment of hesitation, then lay against Gippal's side. Gippal snaked his arm underneath Baralai's neck, cradling him as Baralai draped his arm across Gippal's chest.

Gippal ran his hand through Baralai's hair, watching his delicate eyelashes flutter closed as sleep dared to overtake him. Lai smiled so sweetly in his sleep, and as he was fading from consciousness, the corners of his mouth twitched upward in preparation for the smile of gentle slumber.

Before he got there, though, Gippal had to know. "Lai," he whispered, stroking the hair that fell just above Baralai's left ear.

"Gippal?" came the sleepy reply.

Gippal swallowed, trying to will his voice to not shake. He felt really silly asking the question, but he had to know, and Baralai _had_ said it… "You… you love me?"

Baralai's coffee-colored eyes blinked open, and Gippal wasn't reassured by what he saw there.

The emotion held in those eyes was definitely one of surprise. Gippal's stomach fluttered and sank down into his womb. He hoped it didn't disturb the baby. Surprise? Baralai was surprised. That wasn't good. Maybe he hadn't meant what he had said… people often made false promises in the throes of passion – Gippal had made plenty of those in his time – but he felt strikingly crushed at the expression on Baralai's face and held deep in his eyes.

"Gippal," Baralai said, his voice a whisper. "Gippal…"

Gippal closed his eye, hating that he had gotten his hopes up. He should have known. He should have understood the throes of passion. He had experienced that so many times himself… what made this any different?

Oh yeah. That baby growing in Gippal's womb was the difference. He idly wondered for a split second how many fatherless children he had given to the various women he had slept with over the years. He felt guilty, suddenly. They were all gone now.

"Of course I love you."

Gippal's entire body tensed. Wait, Baralai had just said that he _did_ love him?

Registering that as a good thing, Gippal's body untensed. "You… really mean it?"

Baralai's sleep-smile was on his lips now. "Yes," he murmured, his voice slurring with sleepiness. "I love you."

Gippal's heart fluttered in his chest. He watched Baralai for many long moments, running his fingers gently through the other's hair. "I love you, Lai," he whispered finally as his own eye closed for sleep.

As he was drifting off into his own slumber, he swore he felt a gentle shifting in his abdomen.


	16. Part One Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

Gippal hated it when people knocked at the door.

They seemed to do that more often now. He couldn't get a morning of cuddling Baralai in without someone interrupting! It was terrible.

Baralai's sweet kiss lingered on his lips as he rolled over, putting his hands on his stomach. It still shocked him to feel the slight bulge there, the evidence that there was another life growing inside of him. It still felt bizarre to know that there was another living creature inside of him… it was like a parasite, except, for some reason, just thinking that it was a _baby_ and not a ravenous insect made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

He wondered what, exactly, it was about babies that differentiated them from ravenous insects. Gippal guessed that it was some sort of instinct to protect the young of the species versus the instinct to purge other species when they interfered. What about mothering instincts? What made people raise their voices and coo at babies? -- or, Gippal thought, even at the bulge in a stomach that indicated that there might possibly be a baby in there?

In other words, what turned Baralai from a studious, serious white-mage-turned-religious-leader into a pathetic squishy mess?

Gippal didn't have any answers, but he chuckled quietly to himself as he remembered the look of awe and wonder on Baralai's face every time his hands found Gippal's stomach. It was so cute but so funny at the same time.

How did Gippal get himself into this mess?

Voices from the other room drifted to Gippal's ears. "You're Merla and Danel's son?"

"Yes."

"The rumors are true then. But you've come too late… Vegnagun is already gone."

"I know. I've seen where it's gone, and I intend to follow."

"But then you need to learn what you need to. You are sadly behind."

"I need someone to teach me. I've been trying, but I can only go so far with the teachers I've had—"

"I was a friend of your father's. No, that's not right. I was a _rival_ of your father's."

"You must be Garret, then."

"I take it your father spoke of me."

Gippal shifted in bed. It irritated him that it was difficult to stay in one position for too long, but there really wasn't anything he could do about it. He tried to continue listening, but footsteps indicated that Baralai and his visitor, Garret, were moving into another room. Gippal wanted to know what was going on, and since Baralai never told him anything because he always claimed he didn't want to 'worry' anybody, Gippal had to rely on eavesdropping to figure out what was happening.

Sighing, Gippal dragged himself out of bed and pulled on a loose pair of pale blue pants and a white button-up shirt before walking out into the living room. He pretended to look for something to eat in the refrigerator while he tried to listen to what Baralai and the visitor were saying.

"…it's the least I can do."

"Do you know the spell my… father sought?"

"I know what it was. I can take you to where he was, but the last leg is up to you."

"Of course."

"You'll need to work hard."

"That, sir, is not an issue."

Gippal finally realized that he had been holding the door to the refrigerator open for quite some time, so he finally pulled out some bread – it baffled him why Baralai kept his bread in the refrigerator, but that was just another little quirk of the Praetor.

Just as he was slicing into the thick crust of the bread, Baralai and his visitor came walking into the kitchen nonchalantly. The other man was old and hunched over, leaning heavily on a walking stick as he continued to talk to Baralai. "You have to focus entirely on this! You can't have any distractions!"

Gippal raised his head and caught the man's glare.

"Garret," Baralai said, stepping up next to Gippal, "this is Gippal, my beloved."

The old man wrinkled his nose disapprovingly. "Pregnant. Unfortunate."

Gippal blinked. "No," he said very slowly. "Fortunate. Spreading those white mage genes, yeah?"

"Can't wait that long. Baralai is the chosen one," Garret muttered just loud enough for Gippal to hear. "Not whatever you've got in your heathen stomach."

"Oh, is that it?" Gippal tried to force himself not to seethe. "My stomach is not—"

"Enough," Baralai interrupted, holding his hands up between the two men. "Stop. I _will_ learn this Seal spell you speak of. I assure you."

"You'd better," Garret said, lifting an accusing finger at Baralai. "Those winged people you spoke of depend on it." He turned a frozen glare on Gippal. "Baralai, come with me. You are going to get your first lesson."

Baralai looked helplessly at Gippal as the old man hobbled through the door and out into the hallway. "I'm sorry," he mouthed, his voice silent.

Gippal sighed, feeling defeated. "It's okay," he replied as quietly as he could. "I'm used to it."

"Hey," Baralai said, putting his hand on Gippal's cheek. "I love you."

Gippal was defenseless. What could he say to that? "You too," he replied, kissing Baralai on the cheek. "Be careful. Learn well."

"I will," Baralai answered, smiling. "I'll be back tonight, I hope." He dropped his hand from Gippal's cheek to his stomach. "Take care of your mama," he whispered to Gippal's abdomen.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Gippal rolled over in bed, blinking his eye open to the bright light of the morning sun. He wiped the sleep out of his eyelashes and reached for Baralai in the blankets next to him. As his eyesight adjusted, Gippal realized that he wasn't finding Baralai on that side of the bed.

Sighing, he rolled over again, away from the light. The bed was big enough that Baralai could sneak in on either side of the bed late at night, and it would take Gippal forever to find him in the morning. Gippal felt under the blankets, searching for his lover, but had no luck there either.

Gippal figured that Baralai had gotten up to do something, so he waited. He curled back up under the blankets, putting his hands over his swollen stomach, and thought about how nice it would be to just wrap his arms around Baralai.

The first few weeks of Baralai's apprenticeship with Garret had been hectic but welcome. The welcome part about Baralai taking lessons from Garret was not the intense grueling days that were often mentioned in passing, nor the way Baralai kept falling sick from the failed spells… the good part was that Baralai could come home every night. Garret lived in Bevelle, only a few streets away from the Temple of Yevon where Baralai currently resided, and though the days started early and ended late, he still was able to come home for a few hours to sleep in his own bed.

Gippal sighed. Was Baralai making breakfast? He didn't know and couldn't tell… and it had been too long that he had been waiting for Lai to return. Groaning, he rolled out of bed, his stomach hanging out above the waistline of his pajama pants. In his bare feet, he padded out to the kitchen, searching for his lover.

The kitchen was empty.

Gippal sighed. "Lai?" he called, his voice sounding lonely in the empty room. He peeked into the second bathroom, which was also empty; then, he went into the spare bedroom, also empty, then the living room… Baralai wasn't anywhere.

He had already left.

Gippal bit his lower lip and put his left hand over his abdomen. "Looks like it's just you and me today, little one."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Just when Gippal was about ready to jump out the window to relieve his boredom, someone knocked at the door of the apartment. Thankful – for once, since the sharp rapping on the wooden door wasn't interrupting a blissfully peaceful moment -- Gippal opened the door to reveal the Lady High Summoner Yuna herself.

"Gippal," she said, smiling as she held her hands behind her back, "I heard the news. Congratulations!"

Gippal had to smile even as he looked down at his stomach that bulged out underneath his purple t-shirt. "Thanks Yuna," he replied, trying not to feel terribly girlish about the whole thing. "You came all the way here just to say that?"

"I'd also heard about what Baralai's doing," she said, her loose green pants swirling around her legs as she took a few steps into the apartment. "He's undertaking quite an endeavor. That level of spells takes quite a bit of work to learn."

"I know," Gippal replied. "He's gone most hours of the day… it gets boring around here."

Yuna giggled and tucked a bit of her still-long hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear as she eyed the scattered pieces of machina on the kitchen counter. "I see you've been keeping yourself busy, though."

Gippal rolled his eye. "Yeah, taking apart the microwave. Bevelle machina really is inefficient." He had discarded some of the internal walling of the microwave, leaving the cooking mechanisms exposed. This way, he figured, the food would heat faster since it could just be zapped with nothing getting in the way.

Yuna laughed and turned her head away. Gippal noted that she still kept her hair very long, tying it back in a ponytail. It somehow still made her look feminine, even though her breasts had disappeared – a very evident fact from her tight white t-shirt. She appeared much like Baralai – kind of androgynous, beautiful in a universal, non-gendered way. "Since I'm here," she said, her body movements slow and deliberate, "would you take me out into Bevelle for kaffa?"

"Is the High Summoner asking me on a date?"

Yuna's eyes widened. "No! I didn't mean it like that," she stammered, wringing her hands together. "I just thought you'd be bored and—"

"Just teasing, Yuna," Gippal said, holding out his hands in case she was going to explode. "Yeah, let's get some kaffa. I'm starving anyway."

Gippal pulled on some light sandals and took his set of little-used keys off the hooks next to the door and went with Yuna down the hallway. "Did you come all the way from Besaid? What have you been doing with yourself this whole time?"

Yuna shrugged, walking with her arms swaying around her a little. "I've been helping Lulu and Wakka with their baby – she's getting so big! – and trying to help people clean up after the mess Vegnagun made in the Temples," she replied, smiling.

"Sounds like you're keeping yourself busy," Gippal replied. "How are the Temples holding up? The one here is doing alright, for the most part, from what I can tell."

"They're doing just fine," Yuna said, holding open the door for Gippal to walk through. "They're really cleaning up nicely. I'm just happy that the whole mess is over."

Gippal sighed. "I don't think it's all quite over," he said, feeling weird having a guy – who was really a girl – holding the door for him. Even though Baralai was technically male, Gippal still held the door for him – when he remembered, or when he and Baralai were actually together long enough to both go through the same door. "Vegnagun just escaped to another dimension."

As they walked through the streets of Bevelle, Gippal tried his best to explain the situation to Yuna in a hushed voice. She asked a lot of questions that Gippal had no answers for… like why, if they had just entered this world that had always been like this with all the genders switched, did Baralai still have his apartment in the loft of the Temple in Bevelle, if he had never existed there before?

Gippal didn't know what to say to that. Yuna was right; it didn't make any sense. Yuna did have something interesting to say, however, as they walked into a sandwich and kaffa shop.

"I have received much correspondence regarding Baralai," she said as she closed the door behind them. "You as well. Actually, Isaaru – who calls himself, err, herself, Praetor also – asked about allowing you to reside in the guest room in the Temple."

"The guest room?" Gippal asked as he went to the counter. He tucked his hair behind his ear – a gesture he probably picked up from Yuna -- as he eyed the menu, trying to decide on something to order to eat. "But that's Baralai's apartment…"

"That's what I thought," Yuna said, then leaned forward and ordered a simple three-cheese sandwich and a gourmet kaffa with white chocolate. "But then these other questions started coming in… I thought they were all odd. They were saying that they had spotted a famous white mage of Yevon that they couldn't identify. I didn't know what they were talking about."

"How could they not identify someone if they're famous?" Gippal wondered out loud after he ordered something that was too greasy but sounded perfect for his raging appetite.

"That was my question," Yuna replied, leaning against the counter. "But then they described him… and I realized that they were describing Baralai."

"It makes sense," Gippal said. "That hair totally gives the mages away, and if Baralai had always been thought to be dead, no wonder people flipped out."

"They all seemed a little strange, though."

Gippal raised his eyebrow. "Strange?"

Yuna nodded. "They seemed a little… fanatical. That's the only way I can think of to describe them."

"The Cult of Baralai," Gippal suggested with a snicker.

"Well, from what you say, he was born to be the savior of the world, right?" Yuna took her sandwich and her kaffa and sat down at a rickety table next to the counter.

"Supposedly," Gippal replied, still waiting for his food. "His father, according to everyone, got together with his mother only because they were going to create this superchild."

"Religions often form around saviors," Yuna murmured.

Gippal blinked. "Is it a religion, then?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Some people are just acting fanatical about it… I don't think I'd trust anything like a religion, not after the sins of Yevon."

"There is this Garret guy," Gippal added, steering the topic away from Yevon and Sin. "He's currently teaching Lai some stuff about magic. I guess he was a rival of Lai's dad."

Yuna's eyes went wide. "He's one of the ones who contacted me!" She finished chewing her bite of sandwich and swallowed. "He asked me all sorts of questions about his 'abilities'. I didn't know what he was talking about."

Gippal sighed, accepted his sandwich from the counter, and sat down across from Yuna. "Lai's been trying to learn this white magic spell that no one's done before. That's what he was born to do…" He blinked, chewing thoughtfully. "Well, he wasn't born to do here… I guess what he was _conceived_ to do."

Yuna laughed. "This is all so convoluted," she said, then took a sip of her kaffa. As she swallowed, she put the cup down and reached for the sugar. "But how do you feel about all this?"

Gippal felt his stomach catch. "What do you mean?" He put down the kaffa he had just been considering and decided that sugar was a great idea. "I think it's great that Lai is trying to save the world." Wasn't that obvious? Even if it was another world, Baralai was still being completely selfless by dedicating himself to this cause. Gippal thought it was admirable.

"But don't you miss him?"

"Of course I miss him," Gippal replied through a mouthful of sandwich.

"He should be with you," Yuna said in almost a whisper. "With your baby."

Gippal snorted. "Come on, Yuna," he said after he swallowed. "Baralai's off doing important things."

"And you're not important?"

Where was Yuna going with this? "Yeah, I know I'm important. That's why he comes home to me every night and stays with me as much as possible."

Yuna shook her head. "Babies are important too," she said. "A child needs the care of both of its parents, and if Baralai's just going to ignore it—"

Gippal gaped, and at the last minute he realized he hadn't swallowed his food. He swallowed, then continued with his gaping. "He's not _ignoring_ her," he said quickly. "He still comes and sleeps with us, spends the nights—"

"Her?" Yuna asked, smiling.

Gippal's brain was thrown off-track with that simple question. "Her?" he asked back.

"You said Baralai's not ignoring _her_," Yuna said, still with a knowing smile on her face. "Who's _her_?"

"That's… it's… I…" Gippal stammered, then felt a striking discomfort in his abdomen. He looked down and put his hand on his stomach to comfort the baby. Maybe it was the grease that had upset her.

…her.

"My baby," he said, his voice nearly cracking. "_Her_."

Yuna giggled and sipped her kaffa. "Girls are a handful," she said teasingly, leaning over the table. "Good luck."

Gippal was still shocked that he had just revealed the gender of the baby without knowing it. And then… the realization hit that it was a baby girl, of all things. "Without a real woman for a mother," he said, his appetite suddenly gone. "How are we going to know what to do with her?"

Yuna smiled brightly. "I'll help," she offered.

"That's really nice of you, but I don't want to interfere with—"

"No!" Yuna said, clasping her hands together. "I love children, and baby girls are the most beautiful people in the world!"

Gippal felt himself blushing. "Yuna, thank you," he finally managed to say. "I'm sure that your influence will be very wonderful for the baby. Who knows how she'd turn out otherwise – if she really is a she, I could just be making things up."

"I'm happy to," she said, finishing her kaffa. "Besides, with Baralai gone so much, you probably could use a helping hand."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yuna and Gippal walked through the streets of Bevelle as the sun was setting. The shadows cast by the houses played across the streets, creating dark patches among the light. "What time does Baralai normally get home?" Yuna asked as they crossed the street to the stairs to the Highbridge.

"Usually late at night," Gippal replied, running his hand along the handrail as they ascended the stairs. "He comes in usually after I'm already asleep."

Yuna shook her head. "That's a shame," she said. "He really should be spending more time with you and your baby."

"Hey," Gippal replied, trying not to let Yuna's constant insistence that Baralai was being a bad boyfriend get to him. "Lai's an important guy. I've always known that."

"But you should be important to him, too," Yuna said, folding her hands in front of her. "I just don't like seeing you all alone like this."

"I have Baralai at nights," Gippal assured her. "And during the day, it's the little one and me. We have lots of bonding time."

Yuna nodded shyly. "If you ever need someone, though," she said, her voice low and quiet. "You will call me, okay?"

"Alright," he replied. "Thank you for coming out to see me – us – today."

Yuna giggled. "No problem! Let me know how Baralai does with his white magic."

Gippal nodded and gave Yuna a quick half-hug before entering the temple and heading upstairs to the apartment. It was almost nighttime, and Baralai would be home soon.


	17. Part One Chapter Seventeen

**Author's Note: **Yes, it has been far too long. My apologies. I believe I have entirely forgotten what I was doing with this fic, but much of it has been recovered, and I have made an attempt to finish it. Thank you for your patience, please make sure your tray tables are in their upright and locked position, we are coming in for a landing.

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**Chapter Seventeen**

Baralai slammed the door closed behind him, panting. "They seek me," he said, his voice hoarse.

"Lai," Gippal said, coming to him and holding him as well as he could with his seven-month pregnant stomach. "You're safe here."

"It's getting worse," Baralai said, turning and locking the new sliding lock on the door, wriggling out of Gippal's arms. "They're calling me _savior_."

"You're safe," Gippal repeated helplessly, still trying to hold his beloved, still trying to offer some measure of comfort. Gippal felt like he was worthless to protect Baralai in any sense from the religious fervor that had struck Bevelle. At the same time, however, he was getting a little tired of it. Every time he saw Baralai, it was the same thing – panic and irritation, with no room for the affection they once shared. "I won't let them get you," he recited.

"I won't let them get _you_," Baralai corrected, quickly lacing his hand through Gippal's chin-length blonde hair. "I have to protect you. I'm doing this for you, and for our daughter."

"But you shouldn't have to do this—"

"I have to. I have to make sure _everyone_'s safe." Baralai removed his hand from Gippal's hair, trudged into the living room, and collapsed on the couch.

Gippal watched after him, biting his lower lip. He felt so useless – he couldn't do anything for Baralai, and the simple physical comforts that had always worked before were futile and awkward now. Baralai had loved it when Gippal had decided to further accept the ways of womanhood by letting his hair grow long – even if it still stuck up straight on top of his head most of the time. Gippal also delighted in the smile Baralai gave him whenever they would have time to spend an evening together when the sense of panic finally subsided. In those nights, Baralai would run his hands through Gippal's hair over and over, until the soothing sensation was too much and Gippal fell asleep with his ear against Baralai's chest.

That didn't happen anymore. They simply couldn't get as close as they could before, and Gippal blamed his pregnancy. He felt inhibited by his huge stomach, since it got in the way of the intimacy he and Baralai had always shared. Now Baralai acted like he was practically afraid to touch Gippal for fear that it would disturb the baby; this attitude was seeping into Baralai's public persona as well, with his fear to speak to anyone outside of his closest advisors in case they turned out to be a fanatical Yevonite hailing the return of the savior.

It made Gippal upset that he hadn't had sex with Baralai in probably close to three months – an activity that doubtlessly took Baralai's mind off the problems of the world. He couldn't be wholly upset, however, since proof of their intimacy was right there, on his body, at all times. With that extra weight around his waist, Gippal awkwardly slid down on the couch between Baralai and the arm rest. "Hard day?"

"I'm so close," Baralai murmured. "But I keep getting distracted by all the fanaticism. Outside business is preventing me from learning this last thing I need to learn."

"Don't be discouraged," Gippal tried to comfort, running his fingers through Baralai's silky hair. "You've come so far – doesn't it normally take people years to learn white magic? And you've done it in only a few months. That's really damn good."

"Only because of my great teachers," Baralai tried to say, but his eyes were drifting closed and his words slurring together. "I could… have never…"

"Sleep, Lai," Gippal whispered. "You need rest. I'll be here when you wake."

Baralai smiled, his eyes flickering open for just a moment before closing again for nearly twenty minutes. Gippal tried to sit in the same position, though their daughter kept moving and kicking inside of him and generally making things uncomfortable. Gippal tried hard to be a good pillow, a good resting place for his lover -- but soon, their daughter managed to orient herself so that she could give Baralai's head a firm kick.

"Ow," Baralai muttered, blinking his eyes opened. "She really wants my attention, doesn't she?"

"I think so," Gippal said, trying to be apologetic, though it certainly wasn't his fault.

Baralai turned onto his side so that he was facing Gippal's stomach, still with his head in Gippal's lap. He lifted his right hand slowly and tucked it under Gippal's shirt, his fingertips pressing at the skin around his navel. Closing his eyes, Baralai seemed to listen.

Gippal tried to breathe quietly, though it was difficult when Baralai was a few millimeters away from tickling him ruthlessly. Gippal hated having a ticklish stomach, especially when Baralai kept insisting on feeling it.

"I wonder…" Baralai eventually murmured. "Gippal, would you mind if I--?"

Gippal waited for him to continue, but it didn't happen. "If you what?"

"Tried something?"

"Does it involve pain in any way?"

Baralai grinned. "No, I don't think so," he replied, lifting his other hand and placing it on Gippal's stomach also. "It won't hurt, I promise."

Gippal looked down at Baralai, knowing that he trusted him fully, and understanding that Baralai wouldn't do anything to hurt either the baby or Gippal himself. "Oh, fine," he answered, nodding. "Just be careful."

Baralai closed his eyes, and almost instantly, Gippal felt a growing warmth in his stomach. He instinctively closed his eye also, concentrating on the feeling coming from his abdomen. Baralai's hands felt like warm bags of water, fluid and radiating against his skin, and he could feel their daughter become perfectly still inside of him. It registered to Gippal that Baralai was casting some sort of magic on him, and although magic worried him at times, he trusted Baralai implicitly.

When Gippal opened his eye, only out of curiosity to see what Baralai was doing, he nearly jumped. His entire stomach was glowing white from the inside, like a light was shining out from somewhere under his ribcage. "Lai," Gippal whispered, partially to get his lover's attention, and partially out of pure awe. He had never had light radiating from his stomach before, and it was a pretty intriguing thing to behold.

What struck him most was the way the child was so motionless inside of him. He could feel an odd sensation coming from the womb where he normally felt her kicks and movements, but now it was more of an emotion being conveyed through the biomechanisms that linked them. The emotion was intense; it was so strong that Gippal had difficulty putting words to it. He could hear a voice whispering in his mind, "_love_."

Was this what love felt like? Gippal had to wonder… he knew he had felt love before, in the nights that Baralai held him and he felt so safe, as though they were the only people in the whole world. But this was different; it was deeper, stronger, and intensely cognizant.

That was the only word Gippal could put to the love he felt through the connection to the baby. _Cognizant_. It was like their daughter was aware that her father was touching her through this warmth he was radiating into Gippal's womb, and it was like she was trying to talk back.

The expression on Baralai's face was awesome. His eyes were closed and his head tipped back, his fingertips glowing in magical exertion, and his mouth was poised in a nearly shocked expression. His lips were parted, his teeth showing just slightly, and his breathing grew raspy.

_Love. _

The initiation of a transmission of energy took Gippal's breath away. Where Gippal had felt warmth radiating off Baralai's hands before, now he felt something definitely coming out of his body, giving back to Lai. It was as though their daughter spoke to Baralai, from how Gippal could feel it. He knew it was white magic that was flowing in his womb from Baralai, and now, it felt like he himself was turning the magic back.

_Safe_.

The white light in Gippal's womb waned, dimming to a dull glow. Baralai's hands returned to their normal shade of olive brown, and his mouth closed at the same time as his eyes opened. Baralai's usually dark brown eyes glowed now with a look that Gippal had never seen before.

_Rest_.

"Gippal," Baralai breathed.

"Lai?"

"She's… _awake_."

"What do you mean, she's awake?"

Baralai bowed his head. "I heard her. I felt her touch me. I heard her words and felt her magic."

"Her," Gippal nearly choked on the word, "_magic_?"

Baralai opened his hands, staring at his exposed palms. "Magic," he said, then clenched his hands into fists. "White magic. She has it, she knows it," he raised his eyes to Gippal, "she _showed_ me."

"Are you sure?" Gippal couldn't believe what he was hearing. A child of an Al Bhed, not even born, showing Yevon's Praetor white magic? It was absurd.

"I feel it," Baralai whispered, standing up off the couch. "I feel it," he repeated, starting to pace. His footsteps fell lightly on the carpet as he walked back and forth quickly in front of Gippal. "I must see Garrett."

Gippal felt his heart sink, though he somehow bit back the anger that was trying to seep into his words. "But Lai, you only just got home—"

"I must see him," Baralai repeated, then walked quickly into the kitchen, not even looking back at Gippal as he went.


	18. Part One Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Eighteen**

"Take these," Yuna said, handing Gippal two reddish capsules and a glass of water.

Gippal raised his eyebrow, but took the pills and swallowed them anyway. "What are they?" he asked after the fact.

"They're crushed raspberry leaves," Yuna replied, folding her arms so that her hands got lost in the white fabric of her long-sleeved shirt. "They… make you stretch more easily, so that when the baby is born, it doesn't hurt so much."

"Oh," Gippal answered, looking down at the immense bulge that now served as his stomach. "Man, Yuna, you know everything."

"Well, you only have a few weeks left," she said, sitting down on the couch next to Gippal. "I… asked Lulu lots of questions when she was pregnant." Yuna folded her hands delicately. "And I asked a few of the women now who I knew had children, back in Besaid. I want to help you if I can."

"You've been so good to me," Gippal murmured, putting his hands over his abdomen. "It's incredible of you. I don't get why you'd do all this, though."

"It's just not right!" Yuna exclaimed, clenching her hands into little fists. "I can't stand to see you left so alone like you are."

Every time she said something like that, Gippal felt his heart break a little. Every word in those sorts of statements reminded him of the way Baralai left him, over and over, the way he was gone for so many hours, so many nights… how Gippal had hardly seen him at all in the last week.

"So, I've decided that it's my job, to take care of you," Yuna continued, putting on a smile that Gippal could see right through, "Because obviously Baralai doesn't want to do it."

It was statements like that got Gippal absolutely incensed… not just at Baralai, but at Yuna too. Gippal was aware that his anger at Baralai over not being around was essentially selfish and pointless, but sometimes, Gippal felt like he had every right to be selfish. He was having the man's _child_. That gained him some status, didn't it?

But Yuna was another matter. Gippal became angry with her for exactly the opposite reason – didn't she realize that Baralai was saving the world? And it wasn't even his own world, but it was someone else's. It was so selfless of him that it made Gippal wonder if Baralai had ever had a selfish thought in his life.

Every time Gippal wanted to be upset with Baralai for being obsessive about saving a world that wasn't even his, he remembered what it was like to stare out across the Farplane, standing there with Nooj gesturing to the viewpoint, and watching those beautiful winged people. He remembered it, and his heart ached for them more than it ached for himself.

Those beautiful people, innocent and undeserving, were getting the mess that they had left when they had been unable to defeat the evil of Vegnagun. It had been his people from his world that had created that monster, it had been Baralai who had given it life again, and now it was all their fault that Vegnagun was terrorizing the innocent, beautiful winged people. Someone had to clean up… and Baralai, being the guilty party, was doing the job.

It was all a paradox, though. Gippal had tried so hard to relieve Baralai of the guilt of the possession and of the restarting of Vegnagun… and yet, in the end, the guilt still came down on him.

And it was Gippal, and their baby daughter, that suffered for it.

"Yuna," Gippal murmured. "I… really appreciate all you're doing, but please don't get mad at Baralai. He's only doing what he has to…"

She sighed. "I know." She turned her eyes to the ground, looking away from Gippal. "But just because he doesn't deserve anger doesn't mean that the situation still isn't terrible for you!"

"It's not terrible," Gippal protested. "I mean, I get to live in his apartment, eat his food, sleep in his bed, and—"

"—have his baby, all by yourself?"

"I'm not all by myself. He'll be here when the time comes."

Yuna folded her arms, looking directly into Gippal's eye. "And if he's not?"

"I—" Gippal stammered. He truthfully didn't know. "I'll… it'll be okay."

"Yes, it will," Yuna said, walking over and putting her hands on Gippal's shoulders. "I'll be here, anyway. I'll make sure everything's okay."

After momentary confusion, Gippal suddenly realized what was going on.

Yuna had just made a very large place for herself in his life… and, Gippal feared, perhaps in his heart.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Lai," Gippal said into the Commsphere. "Look, you really need to come home."

"Gippal," Baralai's image replied. "I can't. If I'm away for even a moment, I'm afraid I'll lose it."

"No," Gippal replied, trying to keep his voice even. "I need you here. Please. Just tonight, then you can go back."

Baralai's image softened, and he looked away at some point off the screen.

"Even just for tonight. For a little while. For dinner. You need to eat, don't you?" Gippal pleaded.

Baralai shook his head.

"Lai…" Gippal murmured. "Please."

"Gippal, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Baralai turned his eyes downward. "I just… I can't. I need this. I need to do this."

Gippal forced himself to remain silent for a few moments, trying to think of something – anything – that he could say to bring Baralai home. "I miss you," he finally murmured. "I need you."

"You're breaking my heart."

"You're breaking _mine_," Gippal replied, feeling the tension enter his voice again. "And hers, too!"

"Gippal, don't—"

"Don't what? Tell you the truth?" Gippal could feel the blood rising to his cheeks. "Tell you that yes, damnit, I'm carrying your baby, or have you _forgotten_?"

"No, I—"

"Your daughter, Baralai!" Somewhere in the back of his mind, Gippal was warning himself to not get angry. He was trying to calm himself down. It wasn't working, though. His adrenaline was already flowing. "Or are your lessons, is your magic too important for you to remember that _your_ child is going to be born in less than three weeks?"

"That's not the case at all, it's just that—"

"Stop it with the excuses," Gippal ordered. "Just stop it. Yes, I know what you're doing is important, and you're a great man for doing it. But… I'm lonely, and I'm worried that she feels how lonely I am, and that she's upset with you."

"I don't want that at all." Baralai's face was turned downward. Gippal couldn't tell, but he thought the other's eyes were closed. Maybe he was crying. "I don't want any of that… I don't want any of this!"

Suddenly, Gippal realized that he might have missed something. "Lai?"

"I _hate_ this!" Baralai shouted suddenly. "I hate it and I don't want to do it! I don't want to be a savior. I don't want to be a cult figure. I don't want to have people running after me, watching every move I make, claiming I'm some sort of messiah! I don't want to have this burden, but I have it, and therefore I'm the only one who can do anything about it, even if I just want to come home to you and live the life we're supposed to!" He paused, looking down again before turning his eyes to the ceiling. "But I have to, Gippal, and I'm worried that if I come home to how wonderful you are that I'll never come back."

Gippal couldn't force his jaw or his tongue to move to make any words come out. He found himself gaping at the screen that held his beloved's image, unable to articulate any of the things he was feeling.

"I'm sorry," Baralai finally continued. "But I have to do this, to repent for the sins I have committed. I have to, and if I come home to you, I'll lose sight of that. I am the only one who can do it, and I have to before it's too late for them."

"Will you come home… when she's born?" It was all Gippal could think to ask, even though the dread in his heart was heavy at the anticipation of going weeks without seeing his beloved again.

"This will be ended before that," Baralai said after a pause. "It will be over, so she won't have to live in a world of fear of that monster."

Gippal swallowed. "You're… going…?"

"I'll be back in time for her," Baralai replied, looking up at the screen. To Gippal, it felt like their gazes met through the link in the Commsphere. "I promise you that. I will be back for her, and then the three of us can live together without ever having to worry about any of this!"

That promise made Gippal's heart rise a little bit. "You'll be careful… and you'll be back for her, right?"

"For you, too," Baralai promised. "But I can't come to see you before I go… or else, I might not go at all."

Gippal nodded his understanding. "I love you, Lai," he said in as low of a voice as he thought could travel across the Commsphere lines. "Please… be safe."

"I will," Baralai answered, leaning in close to the screen. Gippal could see the darkness of his eyes clearly, so deep that they bordered on black. "_E muja oui, Gippal_."

When the screen faded to a blackness deeper and darker than Baralai's eyes, Gippal leaned backward into the cushions of the couch before bursting into tears. No matter how Baralai promised, he felt now even more than before that he had lost him.

The only comfort he found was when Yuna's arms circled his shoulders from behind the couch. "I'll be here," she whispered against his ear. "I'll make sure everything's okay."


	19. Part One Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

"Lai—LAI!"

"Gippal, just relax!" Yuna's hands were on Gippal's shoulders. "Don't panic! Uh—just be calm!"

Gippal had resorted to swearing – loudly – in Al Bhed. Every time he swore in Spiran, Yuna yelled at him about how the baby could probably hear him and would grow up with a foul mouth. Gippal thought that was insane, but since Yuna only sort of knew Al Bhed, so he could get away with it.

Of course, he wasn't thinking any of this as the pain threatened to tear his stomach apart as Yuna forced him to lie down on a bed in the emergency room of the Bevelle hospital. "_Tyshed_ Yevon, _pycdynt!_" he swore, his hands automatically gripping his abdomen. Pain surged through his entire lower body so strongly that he could hardly pay attention long enough to hear what Yuna was saying.

"—almost here, just relax and lay down—"

Gippal thought he saw another person rush into the room, but his vision was getting blurry and bleak. His sense of hearing was dominated by the blood pulsing through his veins, and he thought that he could hear his own muscles being forced apart. He became immersed in the sounds and sensations of his own body, unable to experience anything outside of himself.

"—about a week early—"

Where was Baralai? He had promised to be here, he had sworn he would be by Gippal's side for the birth of their baby! Maybe that was him that had run into the room. Gippal tried to force his eye open to see, but another blast of pain blinded him.

"—father's away on business—"

Gippal screamed to try to drown out the pain that ransacked his stomach, thinking that somehow an audible sound would make the hurting stop. He felt like his body was being ripped apart from the inside. Little one, he tried to tell the baby, could you please be a little more gentle?

_Love._

"—there's the head, get the towel to put under her, look at the hair!—"

"—push, Gippal!"

Push. Yes, Gippal knew what that meant. How was he supposed to push again? How did women _do _this?? For a brief moment, his vision materialized again and an image of Yuna appeared before his eyes. She was looking down at him, one hand on his forehead keeping his sweaty blonde hair out of his face. Push, she had said. Yes, Gippal could push.

"—the shoulders, just a little more, come on!—"

Gippal was suddenly aware of the pain gripping his hands and fingers from how hard he was clenching the bedsheets and towels underneath him. It was a completely different sort of pain from what was going on in his abdomen, but it only added to the overall sensation of complete and utter bodily annihilation. This thing in his stomach was not even a tenth of his size, and yet it was wreaking complete havoc on Gippal's body.

"—one more should do it, give us a big push—"

One more, and then it would be over. Gippal felt all the muscles in his legs clenching as he tightened every muscle he could in his stomach and abdomen. The blood pounded in his ears as he screwed his eye closed and pushed with every bit of energy he had.

Then, it all subsided. A wave of relief ran through Gippal's body like someone had poured a bucked of lukewarm water over him, and he panted, gasping for air.

_Goodbye._

"—cut the cord, there, good! Oh, she's so messy, but look at that hair!"

Gippal opened his eye, feeling a very sudden sense of loss and exhaustion. Everything was silent around him except for the voices of the two women in the room with him and… the sound of crying.

"There, little one," he heard Yuna say, and then he lifted his head to see what was going on. Yuna smiled and handed him a white towel.

Confused, Gippal accepted the towel, but it was heavier than a towel should have been. "Oh, be careful!" the other woman, the midwife, exclaimed, and Gippal automatically gathered the heavy towel back up into his arms.

Towels didn't cry, did they? This one was crying. Gippal watched as Yuna pulled back a flap of the soft, downy towel, and underneath was the tiniest face he had ever seen.

His baby girl. Her skin was dark, but not as dark as Baralai's, and her hair… it was easy to tell that it was shock white, exactly like Baralai's, though it was fairly short and plastered to the top of her head.

Gippal couldn't keep the smile off his face as he looked down at the baby. "Hi there," he said softly to her, and at the sound of his voice, the baby stopped crying.

She opened her tiny eyes and blinked a few times, looking up and locking her gaze with her mother's. Gippal looked up at Yuna then. "Yuna, look at her eyes," he whispered.

Yuna bent her head down and looked with Gippal at the tiny baby girl's eyes. "One brown and one green," she said, a grin spreading across her features. "One from each of her parents."

Gippal really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, Yuna's eyes were the same way – one green Al Bhed eye, one Spiran eye – but it was still amazing to look down at this tiny girl and already see such a clear combining of her parents in such an obvious thing as her eyes.

Other than her left eye, however, she looked far more like Baralai, Gippal mused.

"What's her name?" the midwife asked, peering at the baby in Gippal's arms with a smile on her face.

Gippal looked up at Yuna. "I… err, hadn't thought of that," he admitted.

Yuna giggled. "I didn't think you had," she said. "Why not name her after her father?"

"_Baralai _is a terrible name for a girl," Gippal replied, rolling his eye.

"What about just _Lai _then?"

Gippal looked down at her again. "She does look an awful lot like him…"

"What about _Leia_?" the midwife suggested. "That's a nice, Spiran name."

"I'll… I'll ask Lai, when he comes home," Gippal said, running his fingers through his daughter's still damp hair.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Gippal."

Gippal started awake. The first thing he saw was Yuna's hand on his arm. "Hey," he said, lifting his head to look at her. "What's going on?"

The baby was asleep, wrapped in a fuzzy purple blanket, in the crook of his left elbow. She, too, awoke and made a little noise of discontentment.

"You have a visitor," Yuna said with a smile on her face.

Gippal's heart leapt into his throat. "Is it Lai??"

Yuna's smile fell just a little bit. "No, but…" She paused as Gippal sighed. "I'll bring him in, okay? Are you feeling up to it? He said he can only stay for a short time."

Gippal nodded. "Okay," he agreed, shifting in the bed so that he was sitting up a little more. As Yuna left the room, Gippal ran his fingertips along Leia's hairline. Yes, he had decided, Leia was a good name… and Baralai would probably agree.

He didn't even hear footsteps as his visitor entered the room. "Good, you're alright," said a familiar voice.

Gippal was slightly startled, but looked up to see the familiar figure of Nooj. "Hey!" he said, then realized that he had raised his voice a little too much. Leia waved her hand as if trying to get her mother to be quieter. "Err," he said, in a softer voice. "Hey Noojster."

Nooj smirked and stepped closer to the bed to peer at the baby. "She looks healthy," he observed.

"Yeah, everything's okay," Gippal replied, fixing the blanket around Leia's shoulders. "What brings you here? Or, maybe, how are you here?"

"The dead can walk, or have you forgotten?" Nooj looked a little bit amused. "No, I come with news."

"I should've known you wouldn't come just to see me," Gippal teased. "What's going on? Have you heard from Lai?"

"I've been watching him," Nooj responded, then sat down on the edge of Gippal's bed. Gippal noticed that Nooj appeared exactly as he had in the Farplane – entirely whole, and male. It made Gippal wonder if Nooj was even really there at all, or if he was only an image. Deciding to try, Gippal reached over and tried to poke Nooj in the shoulder.

Nooj watched with mild interest as Gippal's finger connected with flesh. "Yes, I have a body," Nooj said, as if that cleared everything up. Leia lifted her hand and waved at him awkwardly, which practically forced a smile onto Nooj's features. "Anyway… Baralai."

"How's he doing?" Gippal asked, reaching his hand over to take Leia's hand. Leia hit his hand gently a few times before growing disinterested.

Nooj was quiet for a few moments. "He's alive and well," he replied at last.

Gippal eyed him. "That doesn't sound good."

"Remember what I told you when you came into the Farplane last time?"

Gippal nodded.

Nooj regarded him carefully for a moment, which made Gippal feel uneasy. "Baralai's mind and body merged with his other self in that world – they call it Kabah, just for reference – and… while he remembers what he's there to do and how to do it, apparently he doesn't seem to remember very much else."

Gippal's only emotion at that statement from Nooj was pure numbness. "What do you mean… he doesn't remember very much else?"

"He doesn't remember you." Nooj's tone was almost apologetic.

Gippal could only nod dumbly. "Does… he doesn't remember Leia either, does he?"

Nooj shook his head.

"Well…" Gippal was trying very, very hard not to cry. It was difficult. "He'll come back when he's done, right? And then he'll remember?"

Nooj looked away. "I don't know how long that will take. He has to put the trap into place and then actually catch Vegnagun… and then attempt to kill it. He may not be successful."

"Wait," Gippal said as Leia shifted and started to fuss in his arms. "You said before that there are copies of all of us in these other worlds… is there a copy of me there? Of Leia?"

"I've already told you there's a version of you there," Nooj replied. "But you're male in that world, with the appropriate male parts. Although I'm not certain, I believe that the version of you that's there may be Baralai's lover – the previous Baralai, and now the one that you know."

"But no Leia?"

Nooj shook his head. "No. The coupling of you and Baralai could not produce a child in that world. It was only possible in this one due to the mistake that brought a male Baralai into this world."

"But…" Gippal paused, thinking. "Baralai was _supposed_ to be male in this world."

Nooj shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me," he replied. "I'm only a guy who happens to go all the right places, not some all-knowing deity." His eyes turned to Leia for a moment before looking back at Gippal. "The point is that I'm here to warn you not to go after Baralai. What happened to him will happen to you – you will merge with your other self and, quite possibly, forget everything that you've known here. And your daughter might not even survive the trip at all since she has no host body in that world."

Gippal felt overcome with a sense of futility in everything he had been through with Baralai up until that point. "He's gone," he whispered, turning his gaze downward, away from Nooj, "isn't he?"

After a long, uncomfortable moment, Nooj finally responded, "Not entirely. You still have her." He gestured to Leia. "She is half of him."

Looking down at his and Baralai's daughter, Gippal lost control of the tears he had been holding in. A small part of him felt mortified for crying like this in front of Nooj, but mostly he felt angry that this had to happen to him and saddened for Leia at the same time. She would never know her father.

_But I will always remember him. _

**End of Part I.**


	20. Part Two Chapter One

_Author's Note: This is the second part of Switch. It occurs nine years after Chapter Nineteen, and will be a much shorter section than the first. It also starts off with a short chapter. Also, in the following chapters, pronouns seem messed up – however, I assure you they are not. After nine years, I think the people of Alt-Spira would get used to the different gender system. Enjoy! –RyRy_

**Switch – Part Two**

_Nine Years Later_

Gippal waited outside on the dock in Luca, watching the ship roll over the waves toward the wooden platform that stretched and separated the water. The _S.S. Leviathan _was a large and beautiful carrier ship, its wooden exterior gleaming golden in the afternoon sun.

The lowering of sails and the dropping of anchors reached Gippal's ears, a friendly creakiness lost in the rolling crashes of the waves. Boots clunked on the wooden deck of the ship, and ropes were thrown over the solid posts as the sailors pulled the ship into the dock. "All in!" shouted one of the sailors as the plank was lowered to bridge the gap between the deck of the ship and the wooden dock.

Gippal crossed her arms, waiting. She thought that she could see Yuna standing on the deck behind the outstretched arms of the sailors. She waited, and waved.

The planks were lowered and ranks of children filed off the ship in orderly rows. Ponytails bobbed on the girls, and plain caps covered the hair of the boys. Yuna waited behind them, his arms firmly at his sides, watching to make sure they all reached the shore safely.

Gippal was looking for a specific ponytail, one that would shine silver in the sunlight. Her eyes longed for the sight of her daughter, who she had missed greatly over the past few months.

A young boy ran ahead of the file, rushing into the arms of his parents. "Welcome home!" an excited mother murmured into her son's ear. The father of the boy stood proudly behind, trying not to smile too broadly.

Gippal waited. Her skirt ruffled in a refreshingly cool breeze coming off the water.

"Go on now," Yuna insisted, shooing the last of the children off the boat. "Does everybody have everything?"

None of the children responded, so Yuna turned and waved his hands at the captain of the ship. He scampered down the plank as the attendants lifted it back into place, making the final jump to the dock.

"Sysy," said a tiny voice from below Gippal's line of sight.

Looking down, she was met with precisely the silver shining ponytail that she had been looking for earlier. "Leia," Gippal said, reaching down and lifting her daughter into her arms. "Welcome home."

"I expected my return to be welcomed," Leia said, rolling her eyes. "I will be leaving in precisely one hundred and sixty hours."

Gippal smiled. "And I want to enjoy every one of those hours."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Eat," Gippal commanded, putting a plate of _lyldic _in front of Leia, who was sitting at the table looking bored and twirling a spoon between her fingers. "Or did they teach you to starve at school?"

"I didn't want to leave, you know," Leia murmured, picking up a small piece of _lyldic _in her spoon. She stared at it like she was memorizing its composition and the pattern of its texture. "I want to stay at school."

"I know," Gippal replied, settling down across the table from Leia. "But I'd wither away without you."

"You are being eccentric and overdramatic, mother."

"Someone has to be." Gippal chewed on a mouthful of _lyldic_, watching her daughter eat – or ponder the act of eating, anyway. "What have you been learning at school?"

"High Summoner Yuna taught us about Summoning," Leia said, dropping the _lyldic _back onto her plate. "Summoning's useless. It's boring."

Gippal's fingers tightened around her fork. "It used to be important. It was the only thing that saved civilization in Spira for a thousand years."

"But it's not anymore," Leia said, her voice barely audible. "Although I understand the importance of historical knowledge, I disagree with the time allotment Summoning has been given."

"Even if you disagree with it, you'd better do as the High Summoner says," Gippal said pointedly. "There's a reason I sent you to that school, and that was to be the best mage that you can be in this world."

"Perhaps you are using me to replace my father." Leia took a bite of the _lyldic_, reminding Gippal of the way her father used to slowly chew his meals.

"That's nonsense," Gippal replied, turning away. She could never talk about Leia's father with a straight face, or without any form of emotion wracking her body. "I just know you can do it, and Spira still needs mages."

"Mmhmm." Leia took another bite of _lyldic_, and Gippal knew that the conversation had come to an end.


	21. Part Two Chapter Two

**Part Two**

_**Chapter Two**_

Gippal didn't fancy herself as being good with children. She had hardly seen Leia at all in the past four years, since Leia had gone off to school, and the time apart hadn't eased their relationship at all.

Leia was extraordinarily bright. She was actually amazing, in Gippal's eyes, but that could have just been Gippal's motherhood showing its bias. Leia spoke Al Bhed and Spiran fluently, had learned to read in both languages by the time she was four years old, could multiply and divide better than Gippal could, and was already exasperating her magic teachers because she could learn anything almost instantly. She also understood machines and their parts better than any of the Al Bhed Gippal had ever known. The way Leia took them apart so quickly reminded her of Rikku.

But in addition to her intelligence, Leia was also extremely detached from everyone and everything. Never had she initiated a conversation with her mother. Whenever Leia had something to say, she would usually just wait until the most poignant time to say it, and blurt it out. Following this, she would refuse to be engaged on a topic.

Most of the time, Leia just sat and stared. She didn't make friends, not even at school with other people around who shared many of her interests. The thing that bothered Gippal the most was that anyone who Gippal considered to be "family" immediately stopped talking whenever Leia entered the room. Gippal could hardly understand any of this – in this manner, she resembled neither Baralai nor herself.

Gippal often felt bad for being disturbed by her own daughter, and felt even worse that she was happy when the girl finally was old enough to be sent away to school. Of course, Yuna was running the school and had pulled a few strings to get her in early since she was so smart, but this also took Yuna away from Gippal too. Now, Gippal spent most of the year alone, and that time by herself made her forget just how creepy her daughter was. However, she was always reminded after only a few short hours with Leia.

"What are you up to?" Gippal asked her daughter, who was currently sitting in the large picture window staring out over the city of Luca.

"Contemplating," Leia said, then went silent.

Gippal sighed, and then Yuna walked in the door. Gippal had never been so thankful.

"Hi Gippal!" Yuna said, crossing the room to where Gippal stood and kissing her happily on the mouth. "How's your prodigal daughter?"

"Cross and brooding," Gippal replied, smiling down at her lover. "The usual."

"You should threaten to not send her back to school," Yuna suggested. "That would teach her."

Gippal looked over to see if Leia heard their teasing, but the child was just staring out the window.

"Come on," Yuna said after a moment. "Let's make dinner. That'll surely cheer her up."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dinner was awkward, consisting of Gippal and Yuna discussing the latest developments in the political climate of Luca while Leia picked at her food silently. Gippal had gotten up to clear the dishes, and Yuna had attempted to engage Leia in conversation. Of course, that had failed, and Gippal's daughter had gotten up from the table and had retired to her room to read a book on white magic.

"I just don't understand," Gippal said, running her fingers through Yuna's hair as they lay in bed together. "She's so unresponsive to me."

"She's that way to all the teachers at the school," Yuna said, wrapping his arms around Gippal's shoulders more tightly. "No one can seem to get through to her, but she's so brilliant that she doesn't seem to need anybody."

"I bet Lai could," Gippal murmured.

"No use thinking about him," Yuna said quickly. "He's not coming back. You look tired."

"I am," Gippal replied, nestling her head closer to Yuna's shoulder. "Trying to impress my own daughter is tough work." She sighed, and confided, "She reminds me of Nooj."

"Sleep, dear," Yuna suggested, as if completely ignoring that last comment. "Tomorrow is another day, and a better one."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Gippal tried to sleep, but she tossed and turned all night. She drifted off into sleep for a few moments at a time, but something in her brain always wrenched her out of slumber.

Finally, Yuna got tired of Gippal's constant motion and tried to shut her down in the best way – sex. It was the secret weapon, and it always worked. True to form, Gippal drifted off into a peaceful, but light, sleep. However, when Gippal slept, she was plagued by dreams that she hadn't had in years.

It had been so long that she had obsessed over being the perfect mother for Leia, concerning her life entirely with her daughter's success, and Gippal had practically forgotten who she was and the world that she had come from before. She had also nearly forgotten the face of Nooj, and when she saw it in her dreams, it nearly startled her awake. "Gippal," a familiar voice commanded, "pay attention."

It was difficult, drifting in and out of sleep, to focus entirely on this shadowy figure from a past that Gippal hardly remembered. She had tried to forget it… it reminded her constantly of Baralai, Leia's father… and a time that seemed entirely alien.

"What's happened to you, man?" Nooj asked, pacing before Gippal's dream-vision. "You've grown soft and stale."

"I've been trying to raise a daughter," Gippal tried to respond, but wound up sounding weak. Something within her abhorred that thought.

"Nonsense," Nooj replied, turning his back to Gippal. "You've accepted. That's a horrible thing for an Al Bhed to do."

"It's the only thing to do," Gippal retorted.

Nooj turned and looked at Gippal over his shoulder. "I knew you were in there somewhere. Where's the man you once were? Have you really lost him in this pathetic simpering mess?"

"I guess I've grown up."

"And turned into a woman."

It was true, Gippal realized. She had been referring to herself as a woman for the past few years… ever since Leia was born, really. The pronoun had changed from _he _to _she, _and Gippal could hardly remember what it was like to be a _he_. "So what?" she asked, putting a hand on her hip. "And you're still dead."

"True," Nooj replied, smirking just slightly. "It's rather pleasant, if a bit boring. At least, it had been until recently."

Suddenly, a horde of memories and forgotten ideas came flooding into Gippal's brain – when Lai was here, the spheres of Lai's parents, the hours spent away from home learning white magic, and the supposed saving of another world from the torment of Vegnagun. Life was exciting, once. "What's been happening recently?"

"It's almost time to move," Nooj said flatly. "You and Leia."

"Move?" Gippal hadn't heard anything about this.

"Everything is almost set up in Kabah – the wing-ed world that Baralai went to – and your daughter is needed before her father forgets about her."

Gippal resisted the urge to chew on her lower lip. "Why would I take her to him, when he left us like this?"

"I thought it was sufficiently explained that it wasn't exactly Baralai's fault that he's being dragged around by—"

"I don't care," Gippal said, folding her arms defiantly. "He left us. He doesn't even know who his daughter is, and probably wouldn't recognize her. I don't want anything to do with him."

"Are you _insane_?"

"What does that mean?"

Nooj shook his head. "Women really are impossible to communicate with. Gippal, do you remember what – who! – Leia is supposed to be."

"_My daughter!"_

"The final destroyer of Vegnagun!" Nooj corrected. "And if she doesn't move soon, she'll lose her opportunity. Pay attention!"

"You act like she's a weapon!"

"Better than the way you're treating her," Nooj replied. "She _is _a weapon, and she knows it."

"She's my daughter," Gippal answered tersely. "Not a weapon."

"Fine, don't think of it that way." Nooj waved his hand abstractly as though he were creating a false image in Gippal's vision. "She's supposed to save Kabah. She's the one they've been waiting for. Come with me."

Gippal blinked as Nooj walked off into the distance of her hazy dream world. "Hey – wait!" She scampered ahead, needing to catch up with the man. "Where are we going?"

"To see the destruction caused in the past nine years."

"I don't want to see it! I want to remain here, take care of—"

"_Gippal!_" Nooj turned on her, his glare almost hurting as it hit Gippal's face. "Have you fallen so quickly into stereotypes?"

Gippal hadn't been expecting that. "…what?"

"Stereotypes!" Nooj exhaled in exasperation. "You spontaneously switch dimensions and find yourself out to be a woman. At first, I thought you could handle it and not lose yourself, but here you are, simpering over how important it is for you to take care of a child! You've even gained weight, and when was the last time you _built _anything? Or even took anything apart?" Nooj practically spat in front of where Gippal was standing. "You're not the man I used to know."

"I'm not a _man_, Noojster," Gippal replied after a long pause.

"No, you're not. None of us are either men or women, truly." Nooj turned and looked off into the distance again. "We're whatever society makes of us. If we have one set of genitals or another, we suddenly have our basic personalities determined for us by our culture. On top of that, we develop who we are." He turned back and looked at Gippal again, making Gippal feel like she was shrinking under a demanding glare. "You had your foundation changed, and everything else fell. It looks like you built a completely different structure, instead of reusing what you already had available."

"Wait," Gippal said, lifting her hand in objection. "Isn't it… good to not use the same crappy broken materials when you rebuild something?"

"Maybe," Nooj replied, "but it's hard to get used to what the new structure looks like." He then started walking off into the distance again, toward whatever it was that he had said Gippal was coming to see.

Gippal, realizing that this was a dream and she was bound to wake up sooner or later, followed Nooj into the darkness. "Tell me what needs to happen," she said as she finally caught up and walked beside Nooj. The man was a much faster walker with a complete body.

"Baralai has set the trap, but he's worried he isn't strong enough to cast the final spell." Nooj kept walking as he talked, not even looking at Gippal. "He's managed to cast it a few times, but if it doesn't come off at the right moment, all will be lost. Baralai will lose his life, and Kabah will be destroyed just like Spira was."

"How does Leia fit in?"

"She can cast the spell. She already knows how… she just needs to get there at the right time." Nooj paused before a shimmering part in the dream world that reminded Gippal of the Farplane. "With her and Baralai casting the spell together, what Baralai created as a trap will actually be able to destroy Vegnagun instead of just capture it."

Gippal was about to say something, but her eyes were caught by the shimmering area in front of them. Inside it, she could make out a picture of a world that struck her as familiar – trees and mountains, a city made of stone. Someone was standing in a doorway, and criss-crossing the sky of the city were winged people. Their wings were made of a leathery looking substance with feathers at the top and what looked like a downy substance on the rest of the wings. Gippal could see the picture more clearly the longer she stared at it.

"It doesn't look destroyed at all," she observed to Nooj, who was also watching.

"Wait."

The picture started to shift, then, like a sphere recorder panning back toward a mountain range. There, in the side of a mountain – a gigantic hole! And out of it was pouring lava – molten rock, slowly descending the mountain from its escape hole -- a hole that looked strikingly like the ones left in the temples in Spira, except on a larger scale.

"That lava will form a river, which will destroy that town you see," Nooj narrated. "It's happened to three other towns in the world so far. The ruptures in the earth were made by Vegnagun. It's digging deep."

"What… what is it doing?" Gippal couldn't take her eye off the picture before her.

"It's rupturing the core of the world somehow, bringing up the poisonous vapors and the burning rock from below to the surface." Nooj paused for a long moment, also watching the scene. "That is the center of Baralai's plan. With the Seal spell he has learned, he can wait for Vegnagun to rise in the place the codebreakers have deciphered will be its next target – the main holy land of the world. There, he will wait until Vegnagun is there, and then seal it at it tries to rupture the land. It will be trapped below ground, unable to surface until the spell wears off."

"But… couldn't it just… go some other way?" Gippal asked, finally forcing herself to stop looking at the shimmering image.

"The spell also – theoretically – freezes the machine in a stasis, rendering it immobile. It puts it to sleep, essentially." Nooj crossed his arms, turning away from the image portal and leading Gippal back the way they had come. "However, Baralai's spell may not be strong enough to do more than just hold it. Leia, on the other hand…"

"What would she be able to do that would surpass him?"

"She – it is said – could be the one to combine Seal with Holy," Nooj explained. "This would make the spell not only a holding spell, but also an offensive one – it would drive Vegnagun back down into the core of the planet. There, the machine would be subject to such pressure and heat without being able to escape—"

"It would break down," Gippal finished. "Melt and solidify into something unusable."

"I knew Gippal was in there somewhere," Nooj observed as they returned to the lighted, normal area of Gippal's dream world.

"When is Baralai doing this?" Gippal asked warily as she saw Nooj beginning to fade slightly.

"Soon. Two nights from now. You and Leia must hurry." Nooj looked down at Gippal one last time. "I'll be waiting for you at the entrance to the Farplane."


	22. Part Two Chapter Three

**Part Two**

_Chapter Three_

Gippal woke with a start.

"You were talking in your sleep," Yuna informed her, shaking Gippal's shoulders, "saying something about Leia. Are you worried about her?"

Gippal sat up, looking at her hands. They had grown soft in her years of worrying for Leia, and she suddenly wasn't certain she liked that. "Nooj," she said simply.

"What about him?" Yuna asked, putting his arm around Gippal.

"A long time ago, he told me something, and just now he found it fit to remind me." Gippal rubbed her hands together, feeling the softness of flesh on flesh, remembering vaguely what it felt like to have calluses on her fingers.

"What was that?" Yuna asked, watching Gippal carefully.

"Leia and Vegnagun," Gippal replied, turning her head to look at Yuna. "You remember all of that?"

Yuna sighed. "How could I forget?"

"I…" Gippal stopped, examining a line on the underside of her palm. "Nooj says it's time."

"Time?"

"For us to go."

"Where?"

Gippal stopped examining her hands, suddenly remembering the feeling of machina weapons under her fingertips. "Vegnagun," she said, going to the edge of the bed and standing up. "Baralai."

"Gippal, wait," Yuna protested, following her. "Where are you going?"

"To find my daughter."

Even though Yuna protested the whole way, Gippal found herself in Leia's room – a sparsely decorated room at the end of the hallway – discovering that Leia had not been asleep at all, but was instead making strange shapes out of a string wound around her fingers.

"Leia," Gippal said in a quiet voice. "Do you want to go on a little journey while you're home?"

Leia eyed her mother with contempt. "I thought the purpose of a vacation from school was for relaxation?"

"For normal students," Gippal replied. "You, though, are special. Someone wants to meet you, but he's far away."

"I don't want to," Leia answered firmly.

Once, Gippal would have just bowed her head and turned around, giving up. However, she wasn't about to let go this time. "Too bad," she said. "You might end up having fun."

"Or dying," Leia informed her mother.

"Now you're being melodramatic," Gippal told her. "Get up and get ready. We're leaving after breakfast."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I want to go too," Yuna said, taking Gippal by the arm. "You can't just leave me here."

"Yuna," Gippal said, closing her eye. "You're needed here. This thing we do… it's dangerous. If you don't come back, can you imagine the chaos this world would be thrown into? You're practically the leader of this world…"

"But what if _you _don't come back?"

"I'll come back," Gippal promised, but she wasn't certain she would fulfill her own words – but it made Yuna feel better, and Gippal knew that.

Yuna looked at her, and finally turned his head away. "Fine," he said. "But take good care of Leia, alright? I've grown kind of attached to her."

"I will," Gippal promised – and she knew that she meant this one. Even though she didn't get along very well with her own daughter, to say the very least, she knew that she could never let any harm befall her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Well, well," said Nooj at the entrance to the Farplane. "Look who decided to show up."

Leia took a step backward from the strange man before her, looking up at her mother curiously.

"This man is an old friend of your father's and mine," Gippal explained at his daughter's unasked question. "He kind of runs things in the Farplane."

"I do no such thing," Nooj replied. "Stop making things up, Gippal. Now, come, don't be afraid." Nooj's bespectacled eyes were on Leia as she toed at the shifting ground experimentally. "It's solid and will hold you."

"It's translucent," Leia observed.

"It's also magic. Now come on."

Gippal laughed at the two of them. If Noojster had been alive and a part of Leia's life, Gippal would have insisted that her daughter refer to Nooj as _ihlma_, or a mother's brother. However, Gippal supposed that Nooj was also Baralai's brother, in a way, which made the whole thing slightly incestuous. She decided to ignore that.

"You can trust your _ihlma_, Leia," Gippal said, putting her hand on Leia's back.

"_Ihlma_?" Leia echoed. "Really?"

Nooj raised his eyebrow. "I suppose, in a strange way. If that makes you hurry up, you can call me that."

"Noojster, you sure know how to ruin—"

"But _you_ can't call me _that_," Nooj snapped at Gippal.

"You're no fun." Gippal was smiling, though, and the journey began into the Farplane and to Kabah.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"It's so pretty," Leia said, starting a conversation for the first time in Gippal's recent memory as she stood, staring into the viewpoint at Kabah. "Except for that big hole in the mountain."

"That's what we're going there to fix," Gippal said, looking at her daughter and not at the scene before them.

"Why do we have to do it?" Leia asked not to Gippal, but to Nooj – who she had taken to calling Ihlma.

"Because you two have very important skills that will help the people here," Nooj told the little girl in a voice that could have been considered gentle – for Nooj. "They will tell you what they need."

"We have to go in and meet them," Gippal said. "Don't be afraid – something strange might happen when we step through. I need you to hold my hand so we don't get separated, okay?"

Leia, acting as if it was the biggest concession she had ever made, put her hand in her mother's. Nooj spoke to Gippal in a hushed voice, not intended for Leia to hear, "If you hold onto her, she'll remind you of who you are. I came to Baralai a short while ago and told him of the coming of a young girl who would bring the destruction of Vegnagun. Now, through rumor, she has a place here in Kabah – that should allow her to exist."

"We'll do it," Gippal replied, and grinned at Nooj. "And if we don't, you'll have to find someone else."

"Or just sit back and watch all the worlds be destroyed." Nooj then put a hand forward toward the portal to Kabah, and the edges of it sparked at his touch. "The Farplane will get crowded. Get to it."

Gippal nodded and, holding firmly onto Leia's hand, made the jump through the portal. Even though it felt oddly like someone plunging a gigantic screwdriver into her shoulderblades, she held firmly onto her daughter – until, with a deafening _whoosh-thunk!_, they hit the ground.


	23. Part Two Chapter Four

_Author's Note: Yes, there's a reference to Harry Potter in here. It is lovingly enacted with no malicious intent._

**Part Two**

_Chapter Four_

"Hey? Hey!"

"Is he dead?"

"No, he's breathing – I think he had a fall."

"Oh – should I get a medic?"

"That's my mother."

"Your mommy, sweetie?"

"This can't be your mommy, this is clearly Gi—"

"She's my mother and she'll be okay."

"Okay sweetie, here, this is my son Vidina. Vi, why don't you show… what was your name, sweetie?"

"Leia."

_Leia_.

"Leia, yes. Vi, why don't you show Leia the shop while we take care of her daddy?"

"Mother."

"Mommy, sorry sweetie. Go on, kids."

"Okay!"

"We should call Nhadala, ya?"

"I didn't know they had a wingless child… from her looks, she seems more like Baralai's—"

_Baralai._

"Don't talk about that, Lu. Maybe he's just babysitting."

"A child with no wings? That's more like a charity case."

"That's been happening ever since the mountain exploded, ya? Kids with all sorts of defects. No wings. Makes me sad to see them."

_Wings._

"Wakka, he's stirring. Here, get him that pillow and some water."

"Mrrph," Gippal found himself saying as he tried to sit up to see who was talking to him. He felt like a thousand ton brick was on his back.

"Hello Gippal," said a somewhat familiar voice. "You had an awfully nasty fall. Just rest. Your wing's in a wrap, but it should be okay in a couple of days."

"…wing?"

"Here, lay on this, brudda," said another familiar voice. Gippal found that his vision was all blurry and disproportioned. "You probably strained your back too, ya? Shouldn'ta been carrying around that kiddo."

"Leia?" Gippal asked, thinking that maybe his vision was slowly focusing. "She's okay?"

"You broke her fall," said the other voice, a woman's, low and sultry. Gippal recognized it, and he thought he could see black hair, fair skin… was that Lulu, Rikku and Yuna's friend?

Yes, yes it was, he realized. And that other person was Wakka. He and Wakka had played Quid a few times…

…wait, what was _Quid_?

It was a game played in the sky, with two goals and five players per team—

…sky? Played in the sky? But how?

By flying?

How?

Very carefully.

With wings.

"You two happened to crash outside of Lu's shop," Wakka was saying. Gippal could almost see him now, his dark brown wings dyed blue at the feathertips to indicate which team he belonged to on the Quid field. How did he know that? "Luckily we were here or you might've laid there for a while."

Lulu brushed Gippal's hair back out of his face. He felt messy and disheveled. "Leia's okay, don't worry. Who is she, anyway?"

She's my daughter.

No, she's not my daughter. She's Nhadala's daughter? No. She's Baralai's daughter? Who was she anyway? She was Baralai's daughter. That was who she was. Not his.

His too? But how was that possible?

His? Hers? Wait, was Gippal a male or female? Well, he felt something uncomfortable, so he must be male… but he felt female. She felt female. Oh, _cred_.

"She can't fly," Gippal said ambiguously, finally answering the question.

"Nice of you to help her, then," Wakka replied. "She lost or something?"

"…yeah." Gippal's back hurt, and he tried to roll over.

"No, no," Lulu said, stopping him. "You'll injure your wing further. Just stay still."

Wings. Gippal had wings. Yes, yes he did. She did? No, he did.

They were the shiny dark green of the desert people, the Al Bhed. No, not the Al Bhed. The Siwan? Yes. No. Yes and no.

He was both. She. He. _He was both_. And he had wings. He had Leia.

He had come here to find Baralai. Vegnagun! Leia!

"I have to see Baralai," Gippal said. "I was on my way to him. With her."

"The young girl!" Wakka said suddenly. "The white haired girl, that's her, isn't it?"

"Wakka, you can't be serious—"

"She is," Gippal said to Lulu, as best as he could without rolling over. He remembered what Nooj had said about the rumors. "I found her. He needs to see her."

"Oh," Wakka intoned, then turned quickly. "Lu, get on the Commsphere. Baralai shouldn't take long to get here."

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Gippal slept off and on and, even once, while Lulu and Wakka were out of the room, stood up out of the bed he was lying on. He was shocked that he didn't fall over backwards, but his body was used to the weight on his back, even if the mechanisms there still felt a little strange.

Mechanics -- that was the only way Gippal could think about these wings as he stared at himself in the small mirror on the wall. Half of his body was used to the presence of these things, but the more he looked, the stranger they seemed. It was like he had a third shoulder on his back, coming up out of his shoulder blades to support these massive appendages – but, for the moment, he preferred to think of them like an addition, like a cosmetic extra limb or something. Better yet, Gippal thought, they were some sort of machinery. He could see how the extra shoulder supported them, and how it was absolutely needed, but he sort of wondered how it was that he was balanced like this with all that extra weight on his back.

Just as he was contemplating this, he heard someone come toward the room, and hurriedly went to the bed and returned to his position on his stomach. There really wasn't any other way to orient himself without the things on his back getting in his way. The intruder was only Wakka, coming back to check on him.

It was in this way that Gippal passed the majority of the day.

It was a few hours later – after many sneaky excursions from the bed to look in the mirror -- that Baralai arrived. He swept into the room with only minor spectacle – not something Gippal would have expected. He still seemed to prefer green, wearing a long dark green robe that covered even his feet and hands; his wings, on the other hand, were a pure white with just a slight hint of dark brown in the underfeathers. The wings matched his hair, shockingly white and disarming.

Gippal felt oddly like he was in the presence of a holy person – which he was, in a way. A long-dormant part of his heart twitched, remembering the way he used to love this man before he left him. Another part of him recognized a friend. Another part of him recognized an ex-lover only recently parted.

Which part was true? Were they all true?

"Gippal," said Baralai slowly. "You appear hurt. Did you need healing?"

"Don't condescend to me," Gippal spat back before he could even think about it. Why was he being so snippy? Did he know?

"Then why am I here? Did you make up that story about the girl to get me here so you could feel some sort of—"

"Father?"

Baralai turned. Gippal watched.

Leia stood in the doorway, her white hair loose from its usual ponytail, matching Baralai's. Her eyes lit up.

"You weren't lying," Baralai whispered. "You do have the girl."

"Daddy!" Leia shouted and ran toward the two of them. Baralai made a move as if to step out of the way of the running wingless girl – he obviously thought she was running after Gippal.

Instead, Leia wrapped her arms around Baralai's waist and buried her nose in his stomach.

"What is the meaning of this?" Baralai asked, looking immediately at Gippal.

Gippal was shocked first of all that Leia had used the affectionate term "daddy", common amongst Spirans, for Baralai. She had never even met the man, and now she was speaking affectionately to him in a way that she had never spoken to Gippal?

On the other hand, Gippal wasn't shocked that Baralai didn't remember her. After all, he had never actually met their daughter, and Nooj had warned him that coming to this new world would wipe out any memory that Baralai had. How could Gippal make him remember? He wished he had asked Nooj about this when he had the chance.

"Spira," Gippal said. It was the only word he could think of that would help.

"Spira?" Baralai repeated.

"Vegnagun," Gippal said again.

"Yes, Vegnagun. What's Spira?"

"Your world. Where you were before this."

"No, this is my world. I've never heard of this Spira."

"Shuyin."

Baralai twitched.

Now, Gippal thought, they were getting somewhere.


	24. Part Two Chapter Five

**Part Two **

_Chapter Five_

"So, she's my daughter," Baralai said quietly, looking through a window and watching Leia sleep in the next room. Instead of flying themselves, due to Gippal's injury and Leia's lack of flying ability, they had taken a small medical airship to Baralai's open-air palace. At least, Gippal had thought it was a palace – it was quite an extraordinary place with sprawling corridors and large open rooms. Leia had been quite tired at the end of the trip and promptly fell asleep inside a covered room with open windows on all sides. Gippal took the opportunity to attempt to explain the situation to Baralai fully as they stood outside on an outcropping of rock.

The explanation was almost working.

"Yes," Gippal replied. "She's your daughter."

"She's half Al Bhed," Baralai observed.

"Yes," Gippal repeated.

"Who's her mother again?"

Gippal sighed and put his fingers to his forehead. Instinctively, he put them above his left eye rather than his right – it was still mildly shocking that he could still see when he put his hand over his eye.

"Me," Gippal said simply. "From another world, in which I'm a woman. Or was. Maybe I still am. I don't know."

"Gippal, if you had issue with your position in our relationship, there are better ways of communicating this—"

"That isn't it," Gippal snapped. "No. That is it. But it isn't. Listen, there are, like, three of me in here. There's the one you know, and the one you knew, and then the mother of Leia."

Baralai was giving Gippal an incredulous look. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No, _tyshed_!" Gippal stood up, and then promptly lost his balance.

Baralai put his hand around Gippal's shoulder to steady him. "Did… what did you just say?"

Gippal couldn't keep the irritated look off of his face, and he knew it. "I said _tyshed_, is there a problem with that?"

"That's… that's a curse…" Baralai closed his eyes. "You always used to say that when you were angry…"

It struck Gippal then that Al Bhed wasn't a language in this world. Whatever his people spoke, it was different. He knew it – he could remember both languages. They sounded similar, true, but the other one had harsher sounds, more hard consonants, and more colorful curses.

"Are you remembering?" Gippal prompted. Encouraged by the look he found on Baralai's face, Gippal started cursing, every one of his favorites.

_Vilgehk pedlrac_.

_Cuh uv y sudranmacc kuyd._

_Fydan-vyd ycc chevvan._

_Cyhtfuns biga vneat ujan credlyga vena._

"That's enough, you're going to disturb your daughter," Baralai interjected.

"Your daughter too," Gippal reminded him.

"Yes, yes." Baralai shook his head. "I can't believe we have a daughter. You and me. What kind of crazy child would we make?"

"You should meet her," Gippal said. "She's so smart, but she's such a loner and she's so… creepy. I never know what she wants, but she's been studying with Yuna, and that seems to make her happy… but she also… loves…" Gippal trailed off. "Am I babbling?"

"You sound like a proud… well, mother, I guess." Baralai was smiling. "You know, we just broke up about a month ago… we had issues with—"

"I know, I was getting feisty because we weren't paying enough attention to each other, and I was having trouble keeping up my relationship with Nhadala and you at the same time. I remember, you know." Gippal was getting better at accessing his different memory banks -- the dual one from Spira and Alt-Spira, and this new one that he was still getting used to.

"Yes," Baralai replied quietly. "I'm sorry about that, whether you believe it or not. The failure of the project really took me apart."

"Yeah, well, it happens." Gippal's memories were fragmented here, as though he knew he should know what Baralai was talking about, but wasn't entirely certain. "So, tell me, since I seem to be confused within myself – what's going on with Vegnagun?"

"Vegnagun… it's a horrendous machine from another world, an intelligent one that seems hell-bent on destroying everything in our world."

"Sounds like Sin…" Gippal mused gravely.

"Sin…" Baralai closed his eyes – perhaps he, too, was remembering. "Yes, Sin. It sounds exactly like Sin, except for the machine part."

"I think Sin was just an extension of Vegnagun, something created by it, stemming from its unethical manipulation." Gippal thought he sounded like he had given this quite a bit of thought – in fact, he had. He had nine years to sort through it all.

Baralai looked confused, then an understanding expression slipped across his features. "And just like then, we need someone special to get rid of it once and for all."

Gippal realized that, finally, he and Baralai were holding hands. "Wasn't that you?"

"No, Gippal. I failed." Baralai hung his head and, even though Gippal had only just noticed their connection, their hands slipped from each other's. "I wasn't strong enough. I was able to stun it enough to hold it back, just like my mother – father – whoever, but I could not destroy it. I don't think it's white magic that can do it… it must be something else."

Gippal, unexpectedly, remembered Rikku. _Vegnagun's just a big machina, right?_ Then, they should be able to take it apart… but who would be insane enough to get that close?

Or, perhaps the question was, who would be powerful enough?

"Lai," Gippal said, looking over at their sleeping daughter. "What if it's her?"

Baralai was silent for several long moments. They felt like years and years, then decades, and lastly eons to Gippal before finally, Baralai whispered, "She is billed as the savior, you know. A white-haired wingless girl."

"How do they know?" Gippal half-heartedly wondered.

Baralai shook his head. "Nooj." He folded his arms. "People keep thinking that they see Nooj everywhere, and then the rumors of the girl start."

"He _did _say he was spreading rumors," Gippal said, remembering out loud. "Sneaky _pycdynt_."

"If I were to call Nooj anything, 'sneaky' would not be it," Baralai replied, taking a few careful steps over to the window to look at their daughter. His wings were folded elegantly behind him, but lowered so the wingtips trailed on the ground – somehow, Gippal had forgotten about the wings until Baralai turned around and revealed them to him. It was as though they were natural.

But they were natural.

Damnit, he hated living this pseudo-plural lifestyle! Everything was both natural and unnatural, right and wrong, remembered and forgotten and never known, all at the same time. He felt like one part of himself should write a synopsis for the others, while the third should be jotting down notes to remind the rest of himself just what, exactly, it was that he was trying to accomplish.

"She's so beautiful," Baralai said, interrupting Gippal's subvocalized ranting at himself. "I can't believe she's mine, but yet… I remember you being pregnant. How beautiful your hair was!"

"_Was_?" Gippal teased.

"I'm sorry." Baralai was always so apologetic. "I think of you differently as a man and as a woman."

"Don't apologize for that. It's the way it happens." Or Gippal guessed that it was. He figured that this was probably the first time this had happened to anybody, ever, in all of existence.

"Is it right, though? It feels like it's somehow wrong to think of men and women differently."

"We think of apples and kiwis differently, don't we?" Gippal was confused at how he knew what these 'kiwis' were, but he had a mental image of a sort of hairy brown and green fruit. "Yet they're both fruits, and while some might like kiwis better than apples, there's nothing inherently superior about one over the other. They're just different."

"_Ed'c mega lusbynehk ybbmac du unyhkac._"

Baralai's pronunciation was terrible, as usual, but Gippal easily recognized the Al Bhed idiom about comparing two fruits. It was encouraging that Baralai could remember that little phrase that Gippal had taught him – Gippal remembered, it was during their Crimson Squad days, in one of his many attempts to show the little dark-skinned Yevonite that the Al Bhed weren't evil incarnate.

"Yet, look there." Gippal stood up now, surprisingly holding his balance as he did so. "There she is, a fusion of two worlds, another half-Spiran half-Al Bhed savior."

"So what do we do?" Baralai asked, his wingbacks touching Gippal's.

Gippal smiled, feeling a pleasant sensation as if Lai had just slipped his arm around Gippal's shoulders. "Nooj said you would have to cast the same spell together. Maybe we should ask her about it."

"How would she know?"

"She taught you white magic," Gippal reminded Baralai. "Or don't you remember that?"

After a pause, Baralai's answer was a simple, "Yes."

"Let's at least wait on deciding until she wakes." Gippal looked up and smiled at Baralai.

"Alright," Baralai acquiesced. "Until then, let me take care of your wing."


	25. Part Two Chapter Six

**Part Two**

_Chapter Six_

"So it's just a big machine?" Leia asked, idly tying together two of the tassels on the blanket she had over her lap.

"That's all," Baralai said, earnestly watching his daughter. She untied the tassels, sending the dark green threads sprawling across their matching blanket. "But no one—"

"Why don't you just take it apart?" Leia wondered, looking over at Gippal.

"It's not that easy, honey," Gippal said, not quite sure right now whether he was her mother or her father. He was perpetually stuck between genders, between roles, between worlds. "It's a very dangerous machine, and very hard to get to. Once upon a time, your, er, father and I, along with your _ihlma_ Nooj and three very lovely ladies, thought we defeated it in our home. It tricked us, though, and destroyed the world."

"Why'd you let it trick you?"

Gippal sighed. Leia was so difficult sometimes. "We didn't realize it was tricking us—"

"Why not?"

"Listen, Leia," Baralai said, taking his daughter's hand and sitting on the bed next to her. Looking at the two of them together, Gippal could see just how much Leia resembled Baralai. They shared not only the same white hair and brown eye, but she had his same nose, too. However, her skin was light, like Gippal's, and her hands were long and graceful like any good Al Bhed. "It was a mistake," Baralai was saying to her as Gippal daydreamed, "and now we have to make everything right, but we need some help finding a way that will work this time."

"Oh." Leia began braiding the tassels together with her one free hand. "What if you trick it first before it tricks you?"

"How should we do that?" Baralai asked patiently. Gippal was suddenly pressed with longing – why hadn't this man been around for her childhood? Even Nooj seemed to do better with Leia than Gippal had, and Baralai seemed like a natural. Maybe she would have grown up differently.

"Hm," Leia said, taking her hand back from Baralai. She bit her lower lip as she tied together her tassel braid with another unbraided tassel. "What if you distract it? Like if you hit it with a bunch of magic in the front but had it being taken apart in the back?"

"The back would be where the power source is," Gippal said, not believing that he was taking the advice of a young girl – even if she was his daughter. He tried to access his memory from the other world, from a time when they'd fought Vegnagun before. "I think… yes, I know it's there. I saw it, but it was too late to get to it before. But how would we get a person around back?"

"Where is it?" Leia replied.

Baralai looked toward the open entryway, in the direction of the hole made by Vegnagun. "It's down inside the mountain, and probably has created a whole cave for itself down there. When I last saw it, it was tunneling and it was so hot in the caverns that I thought the feathers on my wings would burn away."

"Are there other tunnels down there?" Gippal asked.

Baralai shook his head. "There's the basement area under Manel—"

Gippal's memory from Spira kicked in. "Like Bevelle?"

Baralai stared at him blankly. "Bevelle?" he repeated.

"Uh, the holy city?" Gippal supplemented.

"Yes. It's on the other side of the mountain…"

Gippal was remembering the stories of the Via Infinito, which went down miles into the ground. "What's the basement used for?"

"Nothing, really." Baralai shrugged his wings. "No one wants to go down there – it's too closed-in, there's no sky, it's so dark. There's barely enough room to fly down the corridors; only the most skilled fliers would be able to navigate it."

"Does anyone know how far down it goes?" Gippal asked.

Baralai bit his lower lip. "No one's really extensively explored…"

"I think it's time. Who are the best fliers? Military people?"

Shaking his head, Baralai answered, "No, the Quid players. Those guys have to know exactly their strength and dexterity."

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It was in this way that they assembled a team of Quid players to travel down into the tunnels of Manel-Bevelle. Gippal had taken a look at the underground tunnels and they did remind him strikingly of the Via Infinito in the same way that all of the city of Manel seemed to be a duplicate of Bevelle, except not quite as immaculately preserved. He had taken the team of four down into the first level in order to test their ability to handle close quarters.

Wakka, Brother, Rin, and Tidus -- Gippal's other half had to laugh – these four hardly knew each other in this world, except that they were all Quid players, but in Spira and Alt-Spira, these people had been alternately enemies and friends. In fact, Gippal thought he remembered Wakka and Tidus being like brothers… and hey, hadn't Tidus ceased to exist there for a while?

Gippal thought Yuna had angsted on and on about him disappearing before she finally settled down enough to be with him… oh. Yuna. Gippal felt a small pain in his gut at remembering her – mostly because he had forgotten about her all this time. He knew she was probably back in the previous world, really worried about him and Leia. As much as Gippal had missed Baralai, he had grown very fond of Yuna too…

"So we're going all the way down there?"

Rin's voice startled Gippal back into awareness. "Yes," he said, finally. "The old maps of Manel show that these tunnels lead right down to where Vegnagun is, but they're sealed off at the end. That's why you'll need the explosives."

"What if the tunnel collapses?" Tidus asked.

Gippal still thought it was creepy how much he looked like Shuyin. "Well, once you blow the hole in it, you'll be able to get out into the main cavern. Then once Vegnagun is gone, there'll be a big hole to fly out of in the other direction."

Wakka looked skeptical. "And what if the plan doesn't work?"

Gippal shrugged. "We'll all be dead anyway."

"Are you coming with us?" Brother asked in his typical animated voice.

"Yeah," Gippal replied. "With my injury, my flying won't be great, but I've gotta bring with me the secret weapon."

"That girl," Wakka said.

"Yes, and she'll need our help – Brother, Rin, and me – to take the machine apart. Wakka and Tidus will have to protect us in case something happens and maybe offer a lending hand just in case."

"You sound like you've got it all figured out," Rin said.

"And if not," Tidus interjected, "we'll improvise!"

That attitude, Gippal knew, was why he was going to force himself to trust someone with the visage of Shuyin.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Gippal?"

Gippal looked up. The voice belonged to Baralai. "Yes?" he replied.

"Can we, um, talk for a moment?"

"…sure."

Baralai let himself into the room where Gippal was staying. Leia was currently asleep in the adjoining room, and everything was quiet in the palace. He stood, several feet away from the bed that Gippal was occupying.

"Well?" Gippal asked, ever-impatient.

Baralai was quiet for a moment more. Then, he said the words that Gippal had been longing to hear for nine years.

"I'm sorry."

Even though he had finally heard them, Gippal still couldn't muster up the right response. "For what?"

Maybe he just wanted to hear Baralai say it. "For leaving you, and our daughter."

Somehow, even though he had been waiting for their daughter's entire lifetime for these words, they still didn't heal the hole left inside. "Lai, listen, I know that you didn't know this would happen."

"It doesn't excuse it." Baralai took the remaining steps to Gippal's bed and sat down on them. His wings spread out behind him, feathers askew. "I should have stayed-"

"And let these people down?" Gippal still wasn't quite certain of how to hold himself with these wings, so they leaned awkwardly against the wall. "No. You were in a tough place. We got through it alright."

"But I missed her whole childhood." Baralai bit his lower lip. "My daughter. I didn't even know her, or remember her. How could I do that?"

Gippal exhaled deeply. "Because you are the kind of man who would give up anything to do the _right _thing." He put his hand on Baralai's. "And even if it sucks to be the person who was given up, I still respect that decision." Gippal felt guilt gnawing at his stomach, and finally told Baralai the thing that had been worrying him all day. "I, um, I was with Yuna, for a while."

"Yuna?" Baralai replied. "You and _Yuna_?"

"Yes," Gippal replied, trying not to feel resentful at Baralai's tone. "She was there for me when you weren't. Leia… well, Yuna was the only one who could control Leia, or even get her to respond even a little. I was desperate."

"Do you love her?"

Gippal hated that question. "Of course I love her," he replied. "But it's… the kind of love that you find out that you have for someone after a long time of enjoying their company. It's different from the love that I had with you."

"Can we just… start again?" Baralai looked over, hopeful. "Now that I remember – everything, thanks to you and Leia – I want to come back. I want to be part of her life, of yours."

"…Lai…"

"I'm not kidding, Gippal. I remember my relationship with you here, fraught with difficulty and arguing and conflicting opinions. We didn't have anything to bring us together except lust, and that can't be the only thing in a relationship." His fingers moved slightly under Gippal's hand. "Now… we have something. Some_one_. I want to be with her."

Gippal couldn't think of an appropriate response for that. What did one say when the father of your child, gone for nine years, suddenly wanted to return to you? He still felt a measure of anger inside, but he knew, rationally, that it wasn't Baralai's fault. And here he wanted to make it up to Gippal, and Gippal couldn't even say yes or no.

But he could delay. Gippal was good at that.

"I'll tell you what, Lai," Gippal replied finally, looking up at his friend-lover-mate. "If we get through this – all of this – and everything gets set right, let's go from there."

"You're delaying," Baralai said, smiling knowingly. "You're still mad at me."

"No," Gippal replied half-truthfully. "Really, right now, I'm too preoccupied with the likely event of my own death. But if you wanted to stay tonight, here with me, I wouldn't complain."

"You're inviting me to sleep with you," Baralai informed Gippal, as if the other didn't know.

"We don't have to do anything," Gippal replied, squeezing his hand around Baralai's. "But I think it might be nice if Leia knew that her…" He paused, uncertain. "Fathers, I guess, were together again, and happy."

"A likely story," Baralai replied. "Or have you really changed?"

"Having a child changes everything." Gippal couldn't suppress his smile, though. "So will you stay?"

Baralai looked like he didn't even have to consider it. "Of course I will."


	26. Part Two Chapter Seven

**Part Two**  
_Chapter Seven_

Things hadn't gone according to plan at all.

Wakka, Rin, Tidus, Brother, and Gippal – who was carrying Leia – had flown down into the tunnels under Manel as planned. That much had worked out as they predicted. They had set the explosives to open the end of the tunnel, and that was when everything started going wrong.

As Gippal covered his ears to protect them from the sound of rocks exploding and crashing, he covered his daughter's body with his own, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, Rin's voice broke the silence. "Is it going to go off?"

"I don't want to look," Tidus said, still cowering.

"The moment we look up, we'll get blown to bits!" Wakka warned them all.

"I say Brother goes," suggested Brother himself. "He's lived through much worse!"

"Fine, you go," Gippal said, not particularly wanting to lose an eye – again. The memory of the first time he'd lost an eye was still vivid in his mind. "Be careful!"

"I'm always careful!" Brother insisted, and Gippal could hear him scrambling across the rocks toward the explosives.

The next thing he heard was a much less than satisfying _boom_!

Rocks flew, one striking Gippal in the arm and drawing blood, and dust rose into the air. His eyes stung as the dust flew at him, but he stayed in position until he was sure that everything was done moving.

When he finally got up to look at what should have been the destruction of the seal at the end of the tunnel, he saw that the explosives hadn't done anything that they were supposed to – they hadn't even damaged Brother, who was standing a relatively short distance away from them. Some of the rocks at the base of the wall had been broken away, and the floor certainly sloped down more now than it had before, but they were no closer to breaking through this spot and getting to what had been deemed as Vegnagun's power source than they were before.

"Well _cred,_" Gippal said, not quite knowing what he was saying. The curse was almost instinctive. "What now?"

"You're the mastermind behind this," Tidus said.

"Well we certainly hadn't planned on—"

Gippal stopped. A loud rumbling had started beneath their feet, like an earthquake threatening to destroy the very ground they stood on. Wakka and Rin took to the air, even though the ceiling was low, but Gippal kept his arm around Leia.

"It's starting," she said.

"The battle." Gippal looked at the seal in the wall. "Baralai and the others have started fighting. They thought we'd be there by now."

"They probably heard the explosion," Rin said.

Running over to the wall that they should have demolished by now, Gippal pounded on the solid rock in front of him. "Break, damn you!" he shouted at it in various languages. "Come _on!" _

The rumbling only continued, increasing in volume and intensity. The five men watched in horror as part of the wall fell in on itself, threatening to trap them there. Suddenly, a loud crashing sound came from just on the other side of the barrier.

"Must be one of the arms," Gippal said, backing away from the wall. He narrowly avoided getting knocked out by a falling rock. "It must be hitting the wall – come on, do it again! Do we have any more explosives?"

"Here," Brother said, holding up a handful. "These didn't ignite, but I don't know—"

"Give them to me," Gippal said, snatching them out of Brother's hands. "Get back, I'm setting the timer."

Ten seconds, Gippal thought. He hooked up the remaining explosives – not enough, he knew, to do any real damage, but he hoped that they would help – and pressed the appropriate key on the ignition device.

Running back to the other men, Gippal covered his ears again. Another unsatisfactory _boom, _and another portion of the wall had collapsed. It wasn't enough to break through, but Gippal thought he could see the other side of the cavern through a small crack. They were almost there.

"Come on!" he shouted to the other men with him. "Hit it with rocks. Chip it away. We have to get through here!"

Just as they all had settled in to beat their way through the barrier, another resounding crash came from the other side of the wall. A rock struck Rin on the shoulder, sending him sprawling to the ground. Tidus's left wing became trapped under a pile of rubble. Gippal had gotten another arm wound protecting Leia, but tried to ignore the blood streaming down his arm.

It was time. The seal was broken just enough to allow a person to crawl through the opening. He could see the landing of a set of stairs, still somehow miraculously together. "Leia, come on, we have to go now," he said, lifting his daughter up to help her through even though his arm was threatening him with great pain.

"Will it be okay?" Leia asked, looking back down at Gippal.

"It will. We just have to do this one task for your daddy, and everything will be alright." Gippal put on a smile for her. "Come on – ready? I'm going to give you a push, and you jump down to the stairs there, okay? I'll come right through after you."

"Okay, go!"

Gippal lifted her up, and Leia went through the opening in the rock wall. After hearing her feet land on the other side, Gippal lifted himself through. His arm was hurting him more and more from the rock that had struck him from the first explosion, but he ignored it.

They were in the perfect position. Gippal could see the fireworks of spells exploding on the other side of the chamber, but Vegnagun was apparently so completely focused on the mages that it left its back wide open.

"Hold on," Gippal said. "I'm going to fly you over. Grab on tight." He put his arms around Leia, beating his wings to lift into the air. His wing took this moment to remind him that it, too, was injured, but Gippal tried to ignore that too.

Unfortunately, he couldn't ignore the tentacle of Vegnagun whipping at him full-speed. He managed to dodge it, but in the process lost his balance and tumbled through the air.

He furiously tried to right himself, but his wing was more injured than he thought. "No," he said out loud, looking up at the ceiling of the chamber spiraling around in his vision. "Not like—"

"Gotcha!"

Gippal felt himself being caught in the air, his body reeling from its sudden stop. He looked up and saw Brother holding onto his legs, and Wakka grabbing him by a wing and an arm. He looked down, and saw that somehow Leia was still holding onto his torso.

"Ready for landing," Wakka said moments before dropping Gippal and Leia onto a small ledge jutting out from behind Vegnagun. Before Gippal could thank him, he and Brother had flown away to join Rin and Tidus in continuing to distract the machine's arms.

Gippal and Leia were on their own.

The sounds of a Holy spell came from above their heads, raining down light on Vegnagun's back, and Gippal caught sight of what they were aiming for – the power source.

They all looked alike, and even the people who built Vegnagun all those years ago put blinking red lights on important things. "There!" Gippal said, pointing up so that Leia could see what they were looking for.

The little girl, however, apparently had already figured it out. She had climbed up to two platforms above them and was reaching for the cords.

Panic stabbed at Gippal's heart. His little girl was up there, and who knew what would happen if she pulled on those cords! She could get electrocuted! Immediately, he flew up next to her and took her by the wrist. "Let me," he said in the sternest voice he could muster. "I don't want you to get hurt."

Leia crossed her arms and smirked. "Then why am I even here?" she said.

"Because we thought this would be a lot harder," Gippal pointed out as he unplugged some cords from the back of Vegnagun. "We though that – hey!" He pulled on the edge of the device that directed the power. He could see the batteries – rechargeable ones, though he had no idea what the means were of recharging – and this thing he was currently pulling on was the regulator, drawing power from the batteries and dispersing it to the various locations inside the machine. "Hey, move, will you?" he told the part, yanking on it again.

He had no luck trying to pull out the power regulator. He even tried at different angles, removing parts from around it, but Vegnagun was quickly realizing that they were there, trying to get at its innards. Gippal, as quickly as he could, removed the paneling of the chassis that protected this part of the machine, peering inside. There were wires everywhere, and tubes that looked like they were breathing and expelling some sort of foul-smelling gas. He coughed and looked again.

"It's in there," he heard Leia say from below him. "I think you're too big."

"There is no way I'm letting you go in there," Gippal told her, pulling his head out of the chassis. "It's too dangerous."

"You're all going to—"

"Leia," Gippal repeated. "There is no way you are doing this. I will do it."

He wasn't going to listen to another word from her. With all the strength he could draw from his aching arm, Gippal pulled himself up into the chassis.

…and couldn't get in any further. His wings were holding him back. Those damn wings!

"Fit!" he demanded of himself, wiggling his body to try to get through. "Come on, _tyshed_, get through—"

"You're _too bigl!_" Leia repeated, pulling on Gippal's legs to get him out of Vegnagun's innards. "And it's coming after us. Mommy, you have to protect me!"

At those words, Gippal let himself fall from the opening in Vegnagun's chassis. She had called him _mommy_. An affectionate term. She had actually addressed him affectionately, and wasn't being sarcastic.

What was it? Had Leia actually… was she reacting to seeing her parents together in the morning for the first time in her life? Gippal felt the flood of warmth that morning when he had woken up, Baralai in his arms, and Leia at the side of the bed grinning at them.

Was this a change in Leia? And now she was in danger?

He looked over and immediately saw what Leia meant about protecting her – the front of the machine was turning around so that the arms could get a better swing at them. The appendages were getting closer and closer, and Gippal knew they didn't have enough time.

Giving one last look down at Leia, Gippal nodded. "Okay," he said, lifting her up. "Be quick." He had no idea how his daughter knew how to unhook a power source, but she seemed to know. "Leia, I love you, please come back to me."

"Daddy taught me a spell a long time ago," she said, again using an affectionate term that shocked Gippal. "And _Ihlma _Nooj said I needed to use it. I will."

She looked back at him one last time before scurrying through the opening. Gippal watched her go, wishing desperately that he could follow her, but knew that he had another role to fulfill.

"Come on!" he shouted, turning his head and his body to look at Vegnagun, pulling his gun from its holster. "Just try it!"

The very next thing Gippal knew, Vegnagun _was _trying and it was succeeding rather well in its attempt to kill him. Gippal couldn't hit the tentacle with his shots – even though the thing was as big around as his own body and several times as long -- and the vicious machine tore into his left wing with its claws. Gippal could have sworn that he heard Wakka screaming from directly above him – a few moments later, when the pain seared through his back, Gippal realized that it was his own voice that he had heard.

Still standing on the platform, Gippal could feel the horrifying sensation of his own feathers tickling his ankles. Judging from the pain he was feeling in his back, he surmised that one of his wings had been ripped off. He had absolutely no intention of actually turning around to see. He had every intention of ripping off this machine's horrible tentacle with his teeth if he had to.

It was too early for him to be out of ammunition, but he realized that much when he looked down and saw that his gun was refusing to cock anymore. He threw the useless weapon at the second tentacle bearing down on him, missed by a long shot, and took out his knives from their sheathes near his knees.

Pretty soon, he would be down to using his teeth.

First one knife was knocked away by the scaly tentacles, and then the other quickly followed it. There was nothing that Gippal could do to make a mark on the appendages – two of them now, both attacking him from either side. Really, he knew that he was just a decoy, just a shield so the little girl – _his _little girl – could disassemble it from inside and work her magic. He never thought that he would die as a shield, though.

The thought had never even occurred to him – not until a tentacle slammed into his right shoulder. Gippal knew better than to look, but it was too late. His vision had already focused on the metal point, clean through his shoulder, pinning him back to the wall behind him.

The sight of his own shoulder having machine coming right out of it should have sickened Gippal to the point that he collapsed. He knew this, somewhere in the back of his mind. However, the only thing that he could think about, at this moment, was Nooj.

_Gippal, you're looking at me like a specimen. Tell me what you're thinking. _

_It's amazing. The machina comes right from your shoulder, like it's biological. _

_Far from it, Al Bhed. There is nothing biological about it. _

_But then how do you control it? How does it respond to you? _

_I took hold of it one afternoon and forced it to do just that. There is nothing more to it. _

_Forced it? How do you force it? _

_You wouldn't understand. You've never had it be part of you, as close as you Al Bhed claim to be to machina, you don't know what it's like for it to be part of you. _

_I can dream, can't I? _

Gippal thought he was dreaming – and of Nooj, of all things. The machina was in his shoulder. He closed his eyes – or was it his eye? He wasn't so sure anymore – and felt it. There, he could feel it, it had pierced a tendon. In the process, some of the circuits had burst and the wires were free. Vegnagun was right there, connected to nerves, he could feel it cold and hard against his flesh.

_I took hold of it_, Gippal remembered Nooj saying, _and forced it_.

His eyes opening, Gippal looked up at the machine that was holding him captive, took hold of it, and forced it. With a shout that probably could have shaken the very foundations of the temple that stood above this site, Gippal grabbed the appendage with his usable arm and pulled it closer to himself. He dug the tentacle further into his body, forcing the nerves to respond to it.

"Machina," said Gippal to the tentacle in his hand. "Oui lyhhud pa so gemman, hud dutyo. E fyc hud sayhd du tea rana, hud dutyo" _You cannot be my killer, not today. I was not meant to die here, not today._ He forced his body to wrench itself free from the wall, agonizing pain searing throughout his entire torso, but he could still feel the tentacle. "E ryja tnaysat uv drec susahd, yht dutyo, ed ec rana." _I have dreamed of this moment, and today, it is here._

His mind wrapped itself around the composition of the tentacle, feeling each ring of it, feeling the mechanisms underneath. A feeling that was not entirely unlike ecstasy – or was it pain? Gippal had lost the sense of this, too – ripped through his neck and shoulders as he clenched his remaining muscles in his arm.

The tentacle clenched for him.

Vegnagun seemed to scream, astonished at the surprise of being controlled from outside itself. The sound echoed in Gippal's ears as he vaguely watched the tentacle rip free of Vegnagun's control, dropping wires and cables to the chasm below. Not even certain what he was doing, or how he was accomplishing it, Gippal raised his limp, dead arm.

The tentacle raised for him.

Gippal's mind began to break. The tentacle drooped. He couldn't hold onto it, the process was tougher than he had anticipated. He was getting tired, his body sore, still pinned against the wall even though he thought he had stood up away from it.

He focused. Baralai. Leia. He had to do it for them.

He thought of all the inner workings of the tentacle, each circuit and connector and pulley, and turned his body. The tentacle slammed into the torso of Vegnagun, pinning another arm underneath it. Gippal felt the pain rake across his own torso, and imagined that this was something akin to having his ribs be shaken forcefully out of his own body.

Whether he had lost his ribs or not meant nothing. He tried to ignore the pain, the fatigue, the blurring of his vision around the edges. He felt a Holy spell decimate his body – or was it Vegnagun's body? – and he took advantage of it and contorted his torso again.

A pitiful whirring noise responded. The tentacles stopped flailing. The lights on the top of Vegnagun dimmed, then were extinguished. Cracking and crunching followed, and the machine collapsed down on itself.

Gippal thought he heard horribly out of tune organ music.

A rumble sounded, and Gippal saw Vegnagun sinking into the earth. He felt an arm on his shoulder – or was it Vegnagun's shoulder? He looked over, and it was his shoulder – his good shoulder, the one belonging to the arm that was still clutching the now-dead tentacle – and it was Baralai's arm on him.

He could barely make out the words, even though they seemed to resound in his consciousness.

_Gippal! What have you done – what has it done to you? Gippal, don't close your eyes – Gippal! Wake up! Gippal! _


	27. Part Two Chapter Eight and Epilogue

**Part Two**

_Chapter Eight/Epilogue_

"I'm not certain when he'll wake up."

"Don't you mean _if_?"

"No – _when_. He has to wake up. I'll bet he can hear us right now."

"You've always been the optimist. Fine. I'll bring you something to eat."

Footsteps.

"Gippal, I know you can hear me. Gippal, I'm right here, and I won't leave. Something has happened to you, you've lost your arm. But don't worry – I remember you muttering at night, talking to Nooj, or me, or anyone who would listen. You have your wish, but it might not be as nice as you thought."

Silence.

"Listen, Yuna is here too. She's been vigilant. And Paine just stopped by. We're all here for you when you wake up, whenever it is. We're not giving up."

Something was coming into focus. Gippal was trying to open his eye. He felt like someone was speaking to him in a foreign language, and he was slow to process it all.

He had one eye. He could feel the other stubbornly refusing to open, just like it always had. Had he lost his eye again?

Had he woken up in yet another weird parallel dimension?

"Doctor – Doctor! He's moving. I think he's awake."

"Hold him down so he doesn't thrash."

Gippal felt arms on him – on one side. No, he wasn't going to thrash. He promised. He could hear Baralai out there. He wouldn't thrash, because the Praetor might be upset.

Praetor? Is that what he was? Gippal's mind was a blur of images and feelings and memories. He thought he felt feathers tickling his heels.

"Gippal," said a voice that wasn't Baralai's. "Open your eyes – eye. We're right here."

Gippal was reluctant, but his eyelid seemed to blink open on its own, without him telling it to do so. Yes, there was Baralai, and an unfamiliar man that Gippal could only guess was the doctor. His eyes came more into focus, and he saw Yuna's familiar face – back to being feminine, he realized – behind the doctor. Another face he recognized -- Tidus -- was there next to Yuna.

"You're awake," said Baralai, his eyes unmoving, seemingly fixed on Gippal's face.

Gippal tried to say something, but it came out gibberish. He could hear his own voice doing things that he wasn't telling it to do.

"Side effect of the surgery," the doctor said in response to a worried look from Baralai. "We had to do some implants in his brain for control of the arm. He'll regain function after a little bit of practice."

Gippal tried to ask why he had implants in his brain, but Baralai seemed to sense the question before he could even try to voice it. "Gippal," he said, his tone as gentle as it had ever been. "This may frighten you. But don't worry – it's wholly manageable. We've come such a long way, and if anyone can handle it, it's you."

Gippal already had an idea of what the mysterious frightening thing was. Even before Baralai gently took down the blanket and revealed a silver metallic appendage in place of his right arm, Gippal knew what it was that he was going to see.

Upon seeing the hand – metallic, five fingers, curved in just the way Nooj's always used to when at rest – Gippal had to grin. If he could have spoken properly, he would have cursed the old, dead bastard.

Instead, he just laughed.

"Well, that was a pleasant reaction," the doctor said, picking up on Gippal's laughter with his own.

"I think that he's been wanting this his whole life," Baralai said, and then put his hand in Gippal's new machina one. "It's a wonder he didn't chop off his own arm before and do it. He was always jealous of Nooj."

"If only Nooj could have known that someone was jealous of him," Yuna said sadly. "I think he would have liked it."

Baralai looked back at Gippal and smiled. "I think he always did know."

Gippal said something – he wasn't even certain what it was that he was trying to say. Gippal knew that he always ran his mouth just to hear his own voice, but now that was even more apparent than usual.

Again, Baralai seemed to sense the question. "She disappeared," he replied. "Leia. We all disappeared. We're back in Spira, as far as I can tell, but it may be the world playing yet another trick on us, because somehow, everyone here remembers the battle." He looked down and away. "But Leia didn't come with us. We couldn't find her body even among the wreckage – no sign of it."

Gippal nodded. He couldn't think of anything he would even want to say to that. He could cry, but he always knew that Leia would probably not come back from this expedition. She had told him herself – she had not been meant to be born. He vaguely wondered if that was why she was always so distant, always detaching herself from everyone; perhaps she knew, too, that she was just a tool.

This knowledge saddened Gippal deeply, so much that he barely heard Baralai saying, "The remains of Vegnagun collapsed and fell down through a tunnel, deep into the planet. Since then, a strange gray substance sometimes bubbles up through cracks in the ground."

Gippal could tell that Baralai was just going through motions at this point. Perhaps only to get him to stop talking and be quiet, Gippal smiled up at Baralai – the one he remembered, without wings, just simple, complicated Baralai – and then Baralai gasped.

Gippal looked down. His hand had tightened around Baralai's.

"You just don't give up, do you?" Baralai said after a moment of simply staring. "Maybe now they'll call you 'Gippal, the Undying'. It has sort of a ring to it."

Gippal rolled his eye and looked over at the transparent ghost of Nooj, who was silently watching him from the corner. Barely materializing next to him was a little girl with silvery-white hair, who glared at Gippal disapprovingly.

He had to laugh. It must have been hard for the poor girl, to see her mother change so drastically before her very eyes. Well, Gippal thought, now it was all over. Even though he wasn't entirely certain what his own identity was anymore – was he male or female, Spiran or Al Bhed, two-eyed or one, winged or not? – he knew that finally, he was back home.

It had been one hell of a ride.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who followed me on this journey for two years. I hope you've enjoyed messing with everyone's gender, sexuality, and identity as much as I have! _


End file.
